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APOLLONIUS    OF 

TYANA 

A  STUDY  OF    HIS   LIFE  AND  TIMES 


BY 


F.  W.  GROVES  CAMPBELL,  LL.D.  (Duel.) 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

ERNEST    OLDMEADOW 


LONDON 

GRANT   RICHARDS 

1908 


^mfiAL 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Preface      .                ...  7 

I.     Apollonius  of  Tyana           .         .  26 
II.     The   Birth    and   Youth   of 

Apollonius  .  .        -31 

III.  The  Contemplative  Life      .        .  41 

IV.  The  Active  Life       .            .         .  62 
V.     Apollonius  Travels  to  India       .  71 

VI.     He  Visits  Asia  Minor  and  Greece  82 

VII.     He  Visits  Rome  and  Egypt         .  93 

VIII.     His  Further  Travels  and  Return 

to  Rome  for  Trial  .        .107 

IX.     Conclusion.  .  .         -113 


206752 


CFTHu 

.  Ur^'IVBIRSfTY 
<.\  or 


PREFACE 


"^TINE  and  ninety  years  have  passed  since 
Edward  Berwick,  vicar  of  Leixlip  in 
County  Kildare,  published  the  first  and  only 
complete  English  version  of  the  Life  of 
^pollonius  of  Tyana  by  Flavius  Philostratus, 
the  rhetorician  and  sophist  of  Lemnos. 
Berwick's  volume  has  become  so  rare  that, 
last  autumn,  two  London  book-dealers  of 
world-wide  reputation  searched  and  adver- 
tised for  a  copy  in  vain.  Yet  the  nineteenth 
century  produced  a  plentiful  crop  of  essays 
and  commentaries  on  the  gospel  of  Apol- 
lonius  according  to  Philostratus.  Baur, 
Zeller,  Cardinal  Newman,  J.  A.  Froude, 
Chassang — these  are  well-known  names,  but 
they  do  not  exhaust  the  list  of  scholars 
and  critics  who,  since  Berwick's  days, 
have  responded  to  the  allurements  of 
7 


8  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

Tyana's  saint  and  sage.  Nor  has  the 
spell  fallen  upon  scholars  and  critics 
alone.  Thousands  of  readers  of  Keats* 
Lamia  have  lingered  curiously  over  the 
foot-note,  drawn  from  The  Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly^ in  which  Burton  quotes  Philostratus* 
account  of  the  young  philosopher  whom 
Apollonius  miraculously  delivered  from  a 
lamia,  or  serpent,  in  the  guise  of  a  beautiful 
young  gentlewoman.  There  are  others  who 
profess  to  breathe  again  the  atmosphere  of 
the  ^sculapian  College  at  iEgae  in  Pater's 
Marius  the  Epicurean,  Swedenborgians  have 
found  in  Apollonius  a  Swedenborg  born  out 
of  due  time  :  and  some  so-called  Theoso- 
phistSjOn  the  strength  of  the  sage's  pilgrimage 
to  the  wise  men  of  India,  have  claimed  him 
for  their  very  own.  Yet  his  full  legend  in 
English  is  no  longer  to  be  bought  for  money. 
There  was,  however,  a  day  when  the 
names  of  Philostratus  and  of  Apollonius  of 
Tyana  were  on  every  lettered  Briton's 
tongue.  Towards  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  there  appeared  in  London  a 


PREFACE  9 

translation,  by  Charles  Blount,  of  the  first 
two  books  of  Philostratus*  Life.  Blount's 
notes  (which,  according  to  some,  he  bor- 
rowed from  a  more  eminent  scholar)  poured 
oil  upon  the  already  fierce  fires  of  the 
Deistical  controversy.  Bossuet  had  de- 
scribed Apollonius  as  a  magician  in  league 
with  the  devil ;  but  the  effect  of  Blount's 
artfully  annotated  pages  was  to  pit  Tyana's 
glory  against  Nazareth's.  Great  was  the 
consternation  of  the  orthodox  at  the  news 
that  thankful  Tyana,  like  ungrateful  Naza- 
reth, had  nursed  a  prophet  of  blameless  life, 
of  miraculous  power,  of  superabundant  lov- 
ing-kindness, and  of  heroic  virtue.  Both 
Apollonius  of  Tyana  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
were  born  in  the  same  lustrum,  if  not  in  the 
same  year  ;^  both  Tyana's  babe  and  Bethle- 

1  The  birth  of  Apollonius  is  assigned  to  the  year  b.c. 
4.  But,  as  everybody  knows,  the  current  computation  of 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  is  incorrect,  and  the 
first  year  of  our  Lord  ought  to  be  dated  four  or  five  years 
earlier.  If  the  Apollonian  and  Christian  nativities  both 
belong  to  the  same  year  the  coincidence  is  entitled  to  more 
attention  than  it  has  received. 


lo  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

hem's  were  said  to  have  sprung  from  a 
divine  Father  and  a  human  mother  ;  and 
both  these  holy  ones  drew  their  first  breaths 
amid  gracious  portents  and  supernatural 
singings.  Nor  were  these  the  only  paral- 
lels in  the  memoirs  of  the  Tyanean  and  the 
Nazarene.  Blount's  publication  was  there- 
fore received  with  horror  as  an  attempt  to 
displace  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation.  In 
answer  to  the  question,  "  Is  this  He  that 
should  come,  or  look  we  for  another .'' " 
orthodox  Christians  had  been  accustomed 
to  affirm  boldly  the  uniqueness,  sufficiency, 
and  finality  of  Mary's  Son  :  but,  like  a  bolt 
from  the  blue,  here  was  Philostratus  oppos- 
ing himself  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John  and  offering  an  alternative  Messiah. 
Matthew  Arnold  was  anticipated  ;  and  the 
Greek  ideal  was  pitted  against  the  Hebrew. 
Fierce  passions  were  let  loose.  Sermons, 
pamphlets,  and  volumes  descended  upon  the 
presumptuous  Blount  like  fireballs  and  hail- 
stones ;  and  his  adversaries  did  not  rest 
until  the  authorities  had  forbidden  him  to 


PREFACE  II 


print  the  remaining  six  books  of  his  transla- 
tion.^ 

That  Philostratus  composed  his  Life  of 
Apollonius  of  Tyana  as  a  pagan  counterblast 
to  the  Christian  Gospels  is  an  opinion 
which  has  been  held  by  reputable  scholars 
both  before  and  after  Blount's  day.  Philo- 
stratus wrote  the  Life  about  a.d.  216  ;  and, 
in  305,  Hierocles,  who  had  been  pro- 
consul of  Palmyra,  of  Bithynia,  and  finally 
of  Alexandria,  published  a  critical  examina- 
tion of  Christianity  in  which  he  opposed 
the  Apollonian  to  the  Christian  miracles. 
This  work  of  Hierocles  is  lost,  and  we 
know  it  mainly  from  the  able  rejoinder 
of     Eusebius.^       Hierocles     was     further 

1  Blount  repays  the  student  more  as  a  human  being  than 
as  a  scholar.  His  tomes  are  the  graves  of  lost  causes. 
He  gave  deep  offence  in  arguing  that  King  William  held 
the  throne  by  right  of  conquest — an  argument  according 
to  which  any  stronger  invader  would  have  had  the  right  to 
turn  King  William  out.  In  1698  he  committed  suicide 
because  he  could  not  marry  his  deceased  wife's  sister, 
with  whom  he  had  fallen  violently  in  love. 

2  The  reply  of  Eusebius  to  Hierocles  was  printed 
as  an  appendix  to  the  text  of  Philostratus'  Life,  which 


12  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

answered  by  Lactantius  ;  and  it  soon  be- 
came as  necessary  for  every  Catholic  saint 
or  doctor  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
to  have  an  opinion  about  Apollonius  of 
Tyana  as  it  was  for  the  French  bishops 
of  fifty  years  ago  to  have  an  opinion  about 
Our  Lady  of  La  Salette.  Eusebius  hand- 
somely recognised  Apollonius  as  the  first  of 
philosophers.  Lactantius  and  Arnobius 
did  not  deny  his  miracles,  but  referred 
them  to  magic.^     St.  Jerome  also  regarded 

Aldus,  with  some  trepidation,  published  in  1 5  o  i .  Aldus  ex- 
plained that  he  was  giving  "  the  antidote  with  the  poison." 
1  The  miracles  of  Apollonius  are  further  ascribed  to 
magic  in  the  twenty-fourth  of  the  Quaes tiones  et  Respon- 
siones  ad  Orthodoxos^  a  work  formerly  attributed  to  Justin 
Martyr.  As  the  passage  appears  to  have  been  written  by 
an  unknown  author  after  the  death  of  Philostratus,  it  is 
hardly  worth  reproducing  here :  but,  lest  any  reader 
should  be  puzzled  at  hearing  that  Christian  fathers 
admitted  any  non-Christian  miracles  as  historical,  it  may 
be  well  to  explain  that  many  early  Christians  did  not 
look  upon  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  paganism  as  mere 
fictions.  They  vaguely  imagined  Jupiter  and  Juno  and 
the  rest  as  supernal  personages  who,  having  been  dethroned 
and  enfeebled  by  the  Blessed  Trinity,  went  on  living 
stealthily  like  kings  and  queens  in  exile.  Wagner's  Tann- 
hauser,  with  the  pious  Minnesingers  on  the  top  of  the  hill 
and  Venus  in  her  grotto  below,  illustrates  this  state  of  mind. 


PREFACE  13 

him  as  a  magician  ;  but  he  found  things  in 
his  life  to  praise.  St.  Augustine,  in  arguing 
with  the  heathen,  paid  Apollonius  a  rather 
mild  compliment  by  allowing  that  he  was 
purer  than  Jove.  The  learned  Bishop 
Sidonius  Apollinaris  praised  the  Tyanean 
and  translated  his  Life  into  Latin.  On  the 
other  hand,  St.  John  Chrysostom  branded 
the  Life  as  false  and  Apollonius  as  a  de- 
ceiver ;  and  St.  John  Chrysostom's  gradually 
became  the  common  view.  In  the  ninth 
century  Photius  of  Constantinople  roundly 
denounced  Philostratus'  eight  books  as  a 
tissue  of  lies.  Nevertheless  the  cult  of 
Apollonius  lingered  on  almost  to  the  end  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  as  appears  from  the  state- 
ment of  Nicetas  concerning  the  melting- 
down  of  certain  bronze  doors  at  Byzantium. 
These  inestimable  doors  are  said  to  have 
been  inscribed  with  extracts  from  the  Book 
of  Rites,  a  lost  work  of  Apollonius  ;  and 
they  were  destroyed  so  as  to  put  an  end  to 
non-Christian  beliefs  and  usages  which  had 
gathered  round  them.     Of  the  Renaissance 


14  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

writers  who  paid  attention  to  Apollonius, 
the  most  remarkable  was  naturally  the 
magic-loving  and  inquisitive  Pico  della 
Mirandola  who,  like  Baronius,  opined  that 
the  wonder-worker  had  made  a  pact  with 
Satan.  Meric  Casaubon,  in  his  relation  of 
John  Dee*s  dealings  with  spirits,  asserted 
that  the  spirits  with  whom  he  had  com- 
merce, not  Satan,  gave  Apollonius  his 
power  :  but  this  has  not  settled  the  matter. 
Passing  over  Blount,  with  his  friends  and 
foes,  both  English  and  French,  and  coming  to 
modern  times,  we  find  some  writers  following 
Voltaire,  and  placing  the  miracles  of  both 
Apollonius  and  Jesus  in  the  same  category, 
while  others  went  on  maintaining  that  in  so 
far  as  Apollonius  was  not  a  myth  he  was 
an  impostor.  Broadly  speaking,  the  par- 
tisans on  both  sides  were  equally  uncritical, 
and  they  simply  allowed  their  prepossessions 
for  or  against  Christianity  to  determine  their 
attitude  to  Christianity's  supposed  rival. 

In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  most  prevalent  theory  concerning  the 


PREFACE  15 

work  of  Philostratus  was  Baur*s.  Baur, 
followed  by  Zeller,  held  that  the  Life  was 
a  "tendency-writing."  The  old  opinion 
that  Philostratus  had  deliberately  sought  to 
rival  the  Christian  Gospels  was  adopted 
by  Cardinal  Newman  in  one  of  the  least 
satisfactory  of  his  writings  ;  and  it  was 
much  more  fully  set  forth  by  T.  W. 
Allies  in  his  Foundations  of  Christendom, 
Later  on,  poor  Apollonius  fell  among  the 
essayists  and  was  adjudged  a  blackguard 
and  an  impostor  by  J.  A.  Froude.  At  the 
present  day,  the  casual  student  is  confronted 
by  a  rich  embarrassment  of  hypotheses.  He 
may  believe,  with  Dr.  Campbell,  that  Philo- 
stratus has  merely  embellished  and  amplified 
a  partially  truthful  tradition  ;  or,  with 
Chassang,^  that  the  Life  is  a  romanesque  in 
which,  behind  all  the  fond  inventions,  there 
wanders  the  solid  reality  of  a  most  original 
peripatetic  philosopher — un  Dion  Chrysostome 

^  A.  Chassang,  Apollonius  de  Tyane,  sa  Vie^  ses  Voy- 
ages, ses  Prodigesy  par  Plnlostrate,  etc.  Paris,  1862.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  notable  works  on  the  subject. 


i6  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

double   de   Plotin  ou   de  Porphyre ;   or,  with 

Professor  MahafFy,  who  dissents  from  Baur 

and  Zeller,  that  we  have  to  do  with  a  mere 

fairy    tale,    composed    for    the    purpose    of 

painting    an    ideal    sage,    or     a     religious 

counterpart     to    the    fabulous    history    of 

Alexander    the    Great  ;    or,    with    Eunape, 

that    Apollonius    was    something    midway 

between     the    gods    and    men  ;     or,    with 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,that,  like  Pythagoras 

and  Socrates,  he  was  a  privileged  mortal  who 

lived  assisted  by  a  familiar  genius  ;  or,  with 

the    abbe    Freppel,    that    he    was    "a    Don 

Quixote  of  philosophy,"  Damis  being  his 

Sancho  Panza. 

Meanwhile  good  progress  has  been  made 

in    the   dispassionate   criticism,   on    modern 

principles,  of  the  text  and  its  sources.     The 

text  of  Kayser   (who,  by  the  way,  regards 

the  contents  of  the  Life  as  fabulous)  is  the 

best/     As  for  the  sources,  the  most  indus- 

^  Third  Edition.  Leipzig,  1870.  This  third  edition 
embodies  the  improvements  of  Westermann  and  of  the 
ItaHan  brothers  Piccolo.  Kayser's  Preface  describes  the 
extant  MSS. 


PREFACE  17 

trious  and  sharp-eyed  sifting  of  them  so  far 
has  been  done  by  Jessen  ;^  but  there  is  room 
for  an  industrious  philologist  with  enough 
sense  of  style  to  enable  him  to  discrimi- 
nate between  Philostratus'  own  diction 
and  any  older  memorabilia  of  Apollonius 
which  may  be  preserved  verbatim  in  the 
Life. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  will  be 
apparent  that  the  question  of  Apollonius  is 
almost  wholly  bound  up  with  the  question 
of  Philostratus.  Outside  the  writings  of 
Philostratus,  and  the  works  to  which  they 
have  given  rise,  very  few  allusions  to  Apol- 
lonius are  to  be  found.  It  is  true  that 
Appuleius  spoke  of  him  with  respect,  and 
that  Lucian,  also  writing  in  the  second 
century,  spurned  him  as  an  impostor  ;  and 
we  have  the  assurance  of  Lampridius  that  the 

1  J.  Jessen,  Apollonius  von  Tyana  und  sein  Biograph 
Philostratus.  Hamburg,  1885.  The  British  Museum 
hbrarians  have  bound  up  the  national  copy  of  this  work 
along  with  a  penny  dreadful  entitled  The  Life  of  Dick 
Turpin^  Prince  of  Highwaymen, 

B 


1 8  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

Emperor  Alexander  Severus  placed  in  his 
private  chapel  a  statue  of  Apollonius  along 
with  statues  of  Christ,  Abraham,  and 
Orpheus.  It  seems  also  true  that  Marcus 
Aurelius  vowed  a  temple  in  his  honour, 
and  that  Hadrian,  with  reverent  pomp, 
deposited  his  writings  in  the  splendid 
palace  at  Antium,  whither  pilgrims  flocked 
daily  in  crowds  to  see  them.  But  one 
may  fairly  say  that,  without  Philostratus, 
Apollonius  had  survived  merely  as  a  shadow 
of  a  shade.  The  credibility  of  Philo- 
stratus is,  therefore,  a  prime  considera- 
tion.^ 

It  was  the  Empress  Domna  Julia  who  set 
Philostratus  to  work.  This  remarkable 
woman,    who    deserves    fuller    recognition, 

^  Vopiscus,  whose  literary  activity  was  seventy  years 
later  than  that  of  Philostratus,  intended  to  write  a  life  of 
Apollonius  (whom  he  regarded  as  more  than  a  man),  but 
did  not  persevere.  Tascius  Victorianus,  Nichomachus, 
and  the  Egyptian  epic-poet  Soterichus  are  said  to  have 
composed  lives  of  the  Tyanean ;  but  no  traces  of  these 
works  remain.  A  reference  in  Dion  Crassus  is  con- 
temporary with  Philostratus. 


PREFACE  19 

was  the  daughter  of  Bassianus,  priest  of 
the  Sun  at  Emesa  in  Syria,  Surrounded  by 
artists  and  men  of  letters,  she  dispensed 
enlightened  patronage  to  thought  and  learn- 
ing.^ Paganism  was  making  its  last  rally 
against  the  new  religion  to  which  Constan- 
tine,  only  ten  years  later,  was  destined  to 
surrender.  Gibbon  does  not  admit  that  the 
Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana  was  intended  as  a 
pagan  stroke  of  offensive-defence,  and  those 
who  agree  with  him  are  entitled  to  their 
opinion  :  but  it  is  hard  to  believe  that 
Philostratus  began  his  task  without  any 
recollection  of  the  Christian  evangels.  He 
confesses  that  he  had  "  embellished "  the 
materials  out  of  which  he  pretended  to  have 
built  his  work.  These  materials  (excluding 
four  books  on  Apollonius  by  Maeraganes,^ 
which  Philostratus  describes  as  untrust- 
worthy) are  said  to  have  been  the  book  of 

^  Like  Blount,  another  sponsor  of  Apollonius,  Domna 
Julia  committed  suicide. 

-  There  is  a  passing  mention  of  Maeraganes'  books 
in  Origen,  Contra  Celsum. 


20  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

Maximus  of  -/^gae/  where  Apollonius  spent 
his  early  manhood,  at  the  College  of -^scu- 
lapius,  and  a  much  more  important  account 
of  Apollonius'  travels  from  the  pen  of  his 
disciple  Damis. 

If  it  be  granted  for  the  moment  that 
Damis  and  Maximus  truly  lived  and 
breathed,  and  that  their  manuscripts  lay  at 
the  elbow  of  Philostratus  as  he  wrote,  it 
will  still  be  evident  that  those  who  would 
set  up  an  historical  Apollonius  against  the 
historical  Jesus  are  at  a  disadvantage. 
Whatever  may  be  believed  as  to  a  sup- 
posed primitive  Christian  gospel,  no  open- 
minded  scholar  can  deny  that  the  writings 
ascribed  to  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  in 
much  the  same  form  as  we  know  them  to- 
day, were  extant  in  the  first  century  of  the 
Christian   era  :    but,  in   the  case  of  Apol- 

1  Those  who  do  not  prefer  to  regard  Apollonius  of 
.Tyana  as  a  rival  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth  will  be  glad  to 
learn  that  the  college  at  JEg^e  eventually  became 
Christian,  and  that  the  poor-sick  were  treated  there 
without  money  and  without  price. 


PREFACE  21 

lonius,  we  have,  at  the  best,  an  avowedly 
embellished  third-century  redaction  of  con- 
temporary records  which  have  perished.  It 
is  exactly  as  though  our  earliest  Life  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  should  have  been  composed  in 
the  same  year  as  the  Nicene  Creed.  Worse 
still,  there  is  no  external  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  Damis  and  Maximus  and  their 
writings  ;  and  the  internal  evidence,  if  any, 
stands  suspect  for  the  curious  reason  about 
to  be  given. 

One  of  the  few  extant  works  of  Philo- 
stratus  is  his  Imagines^  which  claims  to  be  a 
sort  of  catalogue  raisonne  to  four  and  sixty 
pictures  in  a  villa  at  Naples.^  The  book  is 
highly  interesting  as  the  earliest  continuous 
effort  in  art-criticism  which  has  come  down 
to  us  :  but,  on  grounds  which  cannot  be 
stated  here,  many  students  of  Philostratus 
have  concluded  that  there  was  no  such  villa 
and  no  such  gallery  of  pictures.  If  this 
conclusion  be  sound  Philostratus  was  not 
only  the  first  art-critic,  but  also  the  first  of 
^  There  are  French  translations  of  the  Ima^nes. 


22  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

those  demure  men  of  letters  whose  delight 
is  to  play  solemn  hoaxes  in  which  a  list  of 
sham  sources  and  authorities  ushers  in  a 
show  of  mock  erudition  and  a  pretence  of 
critical  processes.  In  other  words,  if  there 
were  no  pictures  at  Naples  there  may  have 
been  no  Damis  taking  notes  in  the  wake  of 
the  shadowy  Apollonius,  and  no  Maximus 
ransacking  his  memory  in  the  College  of 
-^sculapius  ;  in  which  case  the  Apollonius 
of  Philostratus  becomes  an  ingenious  ex- 
ample of  literary  confectionery,  something 
like  the  ox  of  barley  and  honey,  sacrificed 
by  the  Pythagorean  Empedocles  of  Agri- 
gentum,  which  Philostratus  mentions  in 
the  first  chapter  of  the  Life}  It  is  fair  to 
add  that  the  Imagines  might  never  have 
been  impugned  if  a  belief  in  the  fabulous 
character  of  the  Life  had  not  first  established 

1  The  Life  is  one  of  the  269  books  reviewed  by 
Photius  of  Constantinople  in  his  precious  Bibliotheca, 
While  denouncing  the  matter  of  the  work  as  unedifying 
fiction,  Photius  handsomely  acknowledges  its  literary 
charm. 


PREFACE  23 

itself  in  its  readers'  heads  :  but  the  doubt 
exists,  with  its  proper  arguments,  and  goes 
to  complicate  one  of  the  most  alluring  of 
literary  puzzles.  That  Philostratus  was  a 
fanciful  writer,  hungry  for  the  marvellous 
and  prone  to  fine  writing,  further  appears 
from  his  Eroica.  Indeed,  Chassang  calls 
the  Eroica  the  key  to  the  problem. 

So  much  by  way  of  introduction  to  the 
case  of  Apollonius  in  general.  And  now 
the  reader  will  perhaps  bear  with  a  justifi- 
cation of  this  little  book  in  particular.  As 
Blount's  translation  is  only  an  obsolete  frag- 
ment, and  as  Berwick's  almost  inaccessible 
version  contains  a  superabundance  of  mis- 
renderings  and  lacks  all  the  flavour  of  the 
original.  Dr.  Campbell  and  I  are  wishful,  either 
by  our  own  efforts  or  by  stirring  up  some- 
body better  fitted  for  the  task,  to  fill  a  gap 
in  English  libraries  with  a  more  satisfactory 
translation.  Further,  as  the  one  problem 
involves  the  other,  we  have  in  mind  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Imagines  (a  book  which  has 


24  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

never  been  turned  into  English),  accom- 
panied by  reproductions  of  such  Pompeian 
and  other  wall-paintings  as  may  throw  light 
upon  the  text.  But  life  is  short ;  and,  as 
every  one  knows  who  has  made  the  experi- 
ment, Philostratus  is  a  troublesome  author 
to  translate.  We  are,  therefore,  sending  up 
a  ballon  d^essai  in  the  form  of  the  present 
volume,  which  is  addressed  to  general 
readers  rather  than  to  scholars  who  can 
peruse  Philostratus  in  his  own  Greek. 
Should  we  find  a  sufficiently  large  public 
interested  in  Apollonius  and  his  biographer 
we  shall  be  encouraged  to  carry  out  our 
plan. 

In  the  following  pages  Dr.  Campbell  has 
sought  to  recover  Apollonius  of  Tyana  from 
the  dust  of  controversy  and  to  picture  him 
as  he  existed  in  the  minds  of  his  more  rev- 
erent and  spiritually  minded  believers. 
How  far  such  an  Apollonius  is  identical 
with  the  mage  who  was  certainly  born  in 
Tyana,  or  how  far  he  is  a  literary  fiction,  or 
how  far  he  is  an  ideal  saint  sublimated  from 


PREFACE  25 

the  rarest  aspirations  of  the  finer  spirits 
in  that  pagan  society  which  Christianity 
had  begun  to  leaven — these  are  polemics 
from  which  Dr.  Campbell  has  purposely 
abstained.  He  has,  however,  rounded  off 
his  short  study  by  contrasting  some  of  the 
practices  and  doctrines  of  this  Cappadocian, 
who  is  well-nigh  forgotten,  with  some  words 
and  works  of  that  Galilean  who  has  con- 
quered the  world. 

Ernest  Oldmeadow. 

Ju/y,  1908. 


APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

A  STRANGE  distinctive  figure,  clad  in 
white  linen  and  not  in  garments  wrought 
of  skins ;  with  feet  unsandalled  and  with  locks 
unshorn  ;  austere,  reserved,  and  of  meagre 
mien  ;  with  eyes  cast  upon  the  ground  as 
was  his  manner,  Apollonius  of  Tyana  drew 
to  him,  with  something  of  a  saint's  attrac- 
tion, all  simple  folk,  and  yet  won  as  inti- 
mates Emperors  of  Rome. 

Through  his  love  for  all  life  and  his  swift 
appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  the  human 
form,  he  early  drew  nigh  to  the  sufferings 
of  the  body  and  became  acquainted  with  the 
sufferings  of  the  soul.  He  sought  to  heal, 
or  at  least  to  soothe,  some  of  the  distresses, 
physical  and  spiritual,  of  poor  humanity  ; 
and  to  such  a  singular  degree  of  skilfulness 
26 


APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA  27 

did  he  attain  in  the  healing  arts  of  his  day 
that  even  the  sacred  oracles  of  JEgx  and  of 
Delphi,  pronouncing  him  more  than  mortal, 
referred  the  distempered  body  and  the 
smitten  soul  to  him  for  relief,  knowing 
that  from  his  very  presence  proceeded  a 
peculiar  virtue,  a  benign  influence,  an 
almost  theurgic  power. 

By  reason  also  of  his  devotion  to  a  lofty 
philosophy,  he,  at  an  unusually  early  age, 
elected  to  be  poor  when  the  world  laboured 
to  be  rich  ;  and  he  learned  to  esteem 
temperance  when  men  would  consider 
luxury  alone.  As  a  youth,  he  broke  away 
from  the  status  of  family  and  city  when 
society  was  tribal  and  communal,  preferring 
— at  critical  and  even  at  ordinary  periods — 
to  live  alone  and  to  think  alone  and  ulti- 
mately, as  it  happened,  to  die  alone. 

By  years  of  silence  and  contemplation,  by 
extensive  travel,  and  by  a  continuous  spirit- 
ual and  worldly  experience  he  deepened  and 
developed,  in  no  minute  measure,  an  origi- 
nally powerful  and  intense  personality  ;  and 


28  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

so  it  was  that  at  length  he  became  the 
admiration  not  only  of  all  countries  through 
which  he  passed,  but  of  the  whole  wide 
Roman  and  Hellenic  world.  Cities  sent 
envoys  and  embassages  to  him  decreeing 
him  public  favours ;  monarchs  bestowed 
special  dignities  upon  him,  counting  him 
worthy  to  be  their  counsellor  ;  incense  was 
burnt  before  his  altars  ;  and  after  his  death 
divine  honours  were  paid  to  his  images,  which 
had  been  erected,  with  great  enthusiasm,  in 
all  the  temples  of  the  gods.  Nor  did  his 
fame  evanesce.  All  down  the  ages  his  name 
has  carried  in  it  something  of  a  hurricane  ; 
for  speculative  critics  of  both  early  and  latter 
days  have  thought  to  find  in  the  life  of  this 
exceptional  character  a  parallel  to  the  life  of 
Christ,  and  to  ground  an  argument  thereon 
against  the  supernatural  claims  of  the  Son  of 
Mary.  Hence  for  centuries  even  the  name 
of  Apollonius  was  odious  to  Christians,  for 
it  seemed  the  very  Gospel  of  the  Son  of 
God  was  at  stake  ;  and  Christian  apologists, 
on  their  part,  in  self-defence  (such  is  human 


APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA  29 

nature)  were  not  lacking  to  attack  fiercely 
their  adversaries'  champion  and  to  denounce 
him  as  little  better  than  an  impostor,  a 
sorcerer,  and  a  magician.  On  this  account 
they  have  generally  failed  to  understand  the 
man.  They  have  lacked,  at  least  in  their 
combative  approach  to  him,  that  sweet  affec- 
tion for  signal  worth,  that  gracious  patience 
and  generous  sympathy  for  nobleness  which 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  comprehend  a  new 
or  startling  character  or  mode  of  life. 

Moreover,  they  have  entirely  overlooked 
the  society  and  culture  from  which  the  man 
took  his  origin  and  of  which  he  was  a 
product — that  mellowing  and,  even  then, 
ancient  Greek  culture,  decadent,  no  doubt, 
yet  still  influential,  of  which  at  its  more 
perfect  epoch  we  in  our  age  can  catch  but 
some  partial  ideas  from  the  marvellous 
designs  stamped  on  a  Macedon  coin,  the 
elegant  shape  of  some  beautiful  Phocian 
brazier  or  Attic  tripod,  from  the  satisfying 
and  grand  grace-of-line  still  existing  in 
some  old  Athenian  temple,  or  in  passionate 


30  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

drama  and  profound  philosophy — that  cult- 
ure, in  a  word,  which  has  shaped  and 
informed  the  whole  world's  art. 

So  the  dust  of  centuries  of  controversy- 
has  obscured  this  wonderful  personality.  A 
name  which  once  illuminated  with  a  singular 
splendour  the  mighty  Roman  Empire  has 
been  transmitted  to  us  dimmed,  if  not  alto- 
gether obscured,  by  uncouth  hands  ;  and 
there  comes  to  us  with  an  increasingly 
regretful  surprise  the  knowledge  that  we 
can  never  now  quite  appraise  to  its  correct 
value  the  beauty  and  spirituality  of  the  life 
of  one  whose  heart  was  with  the  hearts  of 
men  and  whose  mind  moved  among  celestial 
things  ;  whose  native  city  was  accounted, 
for  his  sake,  a  sacred  city,  a  city  of  refuge,  a 
privileged  city,  one  that  enjoyed  the  peculiar 
right  of  electing  its  own  magistrates  and 
enacting  its  own  decrees,  and  whose  coins 
were  struck,  in  consequence  of  her  son's 
greatness,  with  the  proud  inscription  :  Tvava 
lepa,  aarvXo?,  avrovojuLog. 


II 


THE  BIRTH   AND   YOUTH   OF 
APOLLONIUS 

TN  the  dawn  of  one  of  those  consummate 
summer  days  which  pass  so  calmly  and 
serenely  by  in  Hellenic  lands  that  even  a 
rustic  Cappadocian  might  well  conceive 
them  to  be  the  immense  slow-moving 
thoughts  of  Zeus,  Apollonius  first  breathed 
this  old  world's  air  in  the  same  year  (accord- 
ing to  the  latest  computations)  as  the  Babe 
of  Bethlehem.  A  wondrous  child  surely — 
born  at  early  morn,  just  at  the  time  when, 
doubtless,  the  finely  fashioned  feet  of  the 
Sun -God  fevered  the  mountain  tops  and 
his  purple  mantle  trailed  gloriously  through 
the  dark  vales.  For  in  the  imaginative 
appreciation  of  a  later  day  (the  only 
31 


32  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

original  appreciation,^  based  on  fragmentary 
facts  and  floating  fancies,  which  has  come 
down  the  centuries  to  us)  it  is  recorded 
that  Apollo  was  his  reputed  father  and 
that  birth  was  given  to  him  in  the  flowering 
fields  around  Tyana.  Thither  his  mother, 
attended  by  her  maidens,  had  gone  forth  to 
gather  the  gentle  buds  still  sealed  with  dew, 
plucking,  so  to  say,  the  sweet  blossom  of 
maternity  to  the  joyous  chants  of  swans, 
sacred  birds  consecrated  to  the  God  of  Light, 
which  with  glad  rush  of  wing  and  vent  of 
voice  circled  the  mead  wherein  she  lay,  pre- 
saging, as  it  would  seem,  in  some  sort,  the 
perfect  purity  of  the  man  that  was  to  be. 

The  child,  of  flower-like  form  and  grace, 
seemed  as  he  grew  to  be  endowed  with  such 
singular  bodily  health  and  bright  bloom  of 
countenance  that  the  hearts  of  mothers  of 
other  children,  less  favoured  than  he,  would 
be  ever  touched  with  an  envious  wistfulness ; 
for  there  was  about  him  such  a  pure  and 
delightful  beauty  as,  in  their  eyes,  could 
1  Philostratus'  Life  of  Apolknius,  written  about  216  a.d. 


THE   BIRTH   OF   APOLLONIUS       33 

only  have  been  given  him  by  a  signal  favour 
of  the  Gods. 

To  the  natural  delight  of  the  growing 
lad  in  things  comely  and  cheerful  about  him, 
and  to  his  peculiar  esteem  for  all  that  was 
externally  bright  and  affluent  in  nature  or 
man,  there  was  allied,  at  least  during  his 
formative  years,  a  profound  disquiet,  an 
almost  visible  distress,  a  kind  of  revulsion 
from  excessive  sympathy,  as  indeed  it  was, 
at  faces  or  forms  tinted  with  the  wan  hues 
of  pain  or  decay,  as  at  something  lacking  in 
the  fulness  of  life  or  the  perfection  of  form 
or  natural  grace.  Meshed  in  a  strangely 
intimate  way  with  his  capacity  for  enjoy- 
ment was  a  certain  faculty  for  fear  or  grief. 
The  keen  joy,  for  example,  which  he  evinced 
in  the  fresh  vitality  of  spring  or  in  the  full 
strength  of  summer  would  be  ever  chas- 
tened with  the  anticipation  of  inevitable 
change,  of  sunless  hours  and  of  darkness. 
The  fading  of  a  flower  or  the  inconsolable 
crying  of  a  little  child  would  be,  to  his  boyish 
mind,  the  shadow,  faint  perhaps,  yet  certain, 
c 


34  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

of  the  deeper  and  more  enduring  darkness 
which  is  Death. 

He  had  not,  of  course,  as  yet  attained 
to  the  estimation  of  the  grandeur  and  dis- 
tinction of  Death,  its  unique  and  supreme 
beauty,  its  natural  loveliness  when  considered 
as  part  of  the  economy  of  Life.  But  as  he 
grew  in  years  it  was  given  him  to  catch 
something  of  its  sweetness  as  of  the  perfume 
of  some  hidden  flower. 

One  may  perhaps  venture  to  indicate 
certain  influences  which  tended  to  develop 
in  Apollonius,  as  he  advanced  into  manhood, 
that  lofty  reverence  in  which  he  held  all  life, 
and  deepened,  as  a  consequence,  his  dislike  to 
all  that  apparently  degraded  or  impaired  it ; 
certain  sources,  as  they  undoubtedly  were, 
from  which  he  drew  the  inspiration  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  life,  which  enabled  him  to 
catch  the  vision  of  a  deathless  destiny  and, 
even,  at  length  (Oh  happy  man  !)  to  make 
his  life  conformable  to  his  dream. 

First  in  fundamental  importance  of  these 
three  persuasions  was  that  blithe  spirit  of 


THE   BIRTH   OF   APOLLONIUS       35 

swift  and  joyful  elevation,  yet  of  swift  and 
delicate  melancholy,  which  was  essentially 
Greek,  and  which  pervaded  Greece  and  the 
Grecian  world  :  not,  of  course,  that  supreme 
Hellenism  which  for  a  short  season,  some 
centuries  previous,  had  soared  serene  and 
grand  beyond  the  range  of  all  vain  question- 
ings and  unrest,  beyond  all  that  would  in 
any  way  limit  or  diffuse  consummate  con- 
ception or  execution  ;  but  that  later  spirit  of 
aftermost  efflorescence  or  extreme  maturity — 
that  decadence^  as  we  would  call  it — still 
bright  and  glorious,  but  suggestive  of 
oblique  suns  in  the  August  month,  when 
the  inevitable  fatigue  of  the  year's  glory  is 
already  in  the  air,  and  when  the  shadow  of 
shortening  days  already  steals,  like  a  grief, 
into  the  face  of  heaven.  Native  and  not 
alien  to  this  blithe  and  buoyant  spirit  and  to 
this  soft  and  tender  melancholy  was  the 
genius  of  Apollonius.  For  the  Greeks  were 
really  at  heart  a  wistful  people,  shy  in  very 
deed  of  the  sorrows  of  life  and  timid  of  the 
terrors   of  death.     They  turned    ever   in- 


36  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

stinctively  to  the  light ;  loving  the  glad 
sunshine  and  the  gleaming  smile — for  shadow 
and  tears  had  no  inherent  loveliness  that 
they  should  desire  them.  Thus  they  would 
incline  from  all  that  would  sadden  or  depress. 
They  saw  the  sombre  side  of  things,  but 
they  would  ever  avert  their  gaze.  They 
would  be  at  pains,  even,  to  change  a  sad  tale 
into  a  sweet  myth  :  a  murdered  youth  they 
would  translate  into  a  bright  star  or  a 
beautiful  flower  ;  and  the  very  Erynnides  or 
Furies  they  softened  into  the  Eumenides  or 
Merciful  Ones. 

But  this  fundamental  and  emotional  trait 
in  the  young  man's  character  was  powerfully 
acted  upon  by  that  new  influence  which  was 
invading  the  whole  Hellenist  world,  and 
which  was  displacing,  or  at  least  transform- 
ing, the  ancient  faiths  which  were  exclu- 
sively local,  tribal,  or  civic.  The  old  academic 
systems  of  Zeno  and  Epicurus  had  ceased 
to  touch  the  heart,  and  the  older  rational 
systems  of  Aristotle  and  Plato  were  comfort- 
less and   cold.     Scepticism   had  clamoured 


THE  BIRTH   OF   APOLLONIUS       37 

awhile  for  support,  but  the  souls  of  men 
had  shrunk  from  it.  And  now  from  the 
shining  East  new  worships  and  new  faiths 
came  streaming  in  with  a  sense  of  sacred, 
almost  sacramental,  mystery  and  inspiration  :^ 
worships  which,  beneath  all  multiplicity, 
made  for  unity,  and  which,  beneath  all 
variety,  yearned  for  God  ;  attractive  wor- 
ships, with  rites  more  magnificent  and  orgies 
more  august  than  any  previously  known 
or  than  that  offered  by  the  simple  service 
or  by  the  quiet  prayer  presented  to  Here 
or  Athene  ;  worships  vivified  with  en- 
thusiasm and  inspired  with  poetry,  and 
which,  notwithstanding  at  times  gaudy  and 
meretricious  shows,  wild  and  uncontrolled 
revivals,  and  mysteries  mingled  with  debas- 
ing extravagances,  yet  contained  the  eternal 
truths  of  vital  religion  wherein  was  liberty 
for  the  soul  and  a  new  way  for  the  spirit, 
where  the  hithertofore  prisoned  and  pur- 
blind being  could  soar  into  a  loftier  and  a 

^  Cf.  Professor  MahafFy's  Greek  World  under  Roman 
Sway  (Macmillan),  pp.  181-266,  to  which  I  am  indebted. 


38  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

rarer  air,  and  thence,  in  ascension,  could 
descry  afar  off  the  marvellous  vision  of  an 
endless  life  beyond  this  earthly  day.  And 
further,  in  these  new  faiths,  appeal  was  made 
not  to  the  confined  or  local,  civil  or  tribal 
cults — cults  that  were  purely  individualist 
and  only  sundered  man  from  man  —  but 
to  society  at  large,  to  all  humanity,  to 
the  whole  world,  and  indicated  the  unity 
and  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  unity  and 
fatherhood  of  God.  Hence  when  the  dulcet 
sound  of  the  sweet  clanging  cymbals  and 
of  the  soft  reeds  of  the  Phrygian  Cybele 
warmed  the  air,  or  the  matinal  chant  ot 
Mithra  and  the  nocturnal  note  of  Serapis 
stirred  it  strangely,  the  flexible  and  acutely 
syncretic  mind  of  the  Greek  comprehended 
the  new  voice  and  received  the  new  hope  ; 
and  Apollonius,  feeling  his  spiritual  thirst 
assuaged  and  his  yearning  stanched,  though 
preserving  the  older  aristocratic  forms  and 
institutions  and  conservative  beliefs,  opened 
his  heart  to  what  was  best  in  the  new  faiths 
and  accepted  them,  not  merely  for  the  poetical 


THE  BIRTH   OF   APOLLONIUS       39 

and  enthusiastic  elements  which  predomin- 
ated, but  for  the  active  virtues,  the  practical 
conduct,  which  took  form  in  a  unitive  life, 
at  once  common,  corporate,  and  continuous. 
Lastly,  came  an  actual  experience  which 
consolidated  and  fused  the  otherwise  un- 
fixed and  nebulous  thoughts  of  the  sensi- 
tive youth  :  a  delightful  visit  of  four  years* 
duration  to  the  cool  groves  and  silent 
temple  of  ^Esculapius  at  JEgx.  Hither 
he  had  come  in  the  hope  of  wooing  or 
winning  some  of  the  reluctant  and  elusive 
secrets  of  Nature  or  the  God,  by  means  of 
which  he  would  thenceforth  be  enabled  to 
approach  with  a  sympathy  that  would 
soothe  and  heal  the  ageless  misery  of  man 
or  uphold  for  a  time  his  agony  that  endures. 
Here  in  this  solemn  temple,  reared  in  all 
the  austere  magnificence  of  Greek  concep- 
tion great  with  Greek  restraint,  he  became 
so  devoted  to  the  Master  and  so  earnest  in 
his  service  that  it  was  said  the  God,  in  his 
clemency,  found  peculiar  pleasure  in  per- 
forming   many   and    strange    cures    in    the 


40  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

presence  of  so  faithful  a  witness  as  his 
servitor  ;  and  here  as  one  of  a  great  com- 
munity of  devout  men,  bound  together  by 
a  moral  discipline,  possessing  a  common 
rule,  and,  as  it  might  appear  to  him,  enjoy- 
ing a  privileged  relationship  with  the  God 
that  medicined  the  bodies  and  souls  of  sick 
and  sorrowful  men,  he  saw  and  learned  in 
actual  practice  the  ordered^  as  well  as  the 
corporate,  life. 


Ill 

THE  CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE 

TN  his  daily  occupation  of  restoring  the 
disordered  body  and  the  disarrayed  mind, 
and  in  his  continual  contact  with  the  great 
healing  phenomena  of  Nature,  problems 
and  profound  questions,  which  had  in  earlier 
years  presented  themselves  incidentally  to 
the  mind  of  the  young  disciple,  now  gradu- 
ally became  more  recurrent  and  insistent. 
But  an  event  which  about  this  time  took 
place  suddenly  fanned  these  smouldering 
speculations  into  full  flame. 

One  placid  evening,  while  the  memory  of 
the  day's  splendid  rule  still  lived  in  the 
cool  and  silent  air,  a  messenger,  compassed 
with  all  the  customary  signs  of  grief,  was 
seen  slowly  wending  his  way  up  the  long 
avenue  of  cypresses  which  led  to  the  great 
41 


42  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

court  of  the  sacred  college.  A  certain  faint 
odour  of  sweet  incense  in  the  air  and  an 
occasional  splash  of  some  gentle  fountain 
spoke,  no  doubt,  to  him  of  devotion  and 
purity,  and  of  that  higher  and  mysterious 
Power  who  here  deigned  to  heal  all  the 
maladies  of  the  soul  and  body.  He  asked 
for  one  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  and  having 
been  conducted  into  one  of  the  ante- 
chambers, the  walls  of  which  were  coloured 
and  carved  with  the  history  of  the  Son  of 
Apollo,  he  presented  to  the  youthful 
student,  who  had  silently  entered,  a  letter 
with  the  sad  intelligence  that  his  father  had 
suddenly  died.  The  painful  news  so  shook 
his  being  that  it  was  some  time  before  he 
could  control  his  emotion  ;  and  even  for 
many  days  thereafter,  neither  the  effluence 
of  his  priestly  ministrations  nor  the  absolv- 
ing calm  of  the  sacred  precincts  could  still 
his  mind.  The  thought  of  the  old  home 
with  all  its  sweet  associations  and  his  child- 
hood came  to  him  weighted  with  a  sorrow 
and  a  regret  which  he  could  scarcely  bear. 


THE   CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        43 

But  above  all  broke  out  before  his  mental 
vision  the  great  question  of  Life  and  Death. 
Before  it  was  to  him  but  a  purely  philo- 
sophic or  academic  question.  Now  it  be- 
came one  of  supreme  and  intensely  personal 
and  practical  importance.  It  rose  and  de- 
manded answer,  at  once  immediate,  clear 
and  decisive. 

In  common  with  all  Hellenist  culture 
Apollonius  had  esteemed  the  more  beauti- 
ful and  joyous  aspects  of  life  —  delicate 
shapes  and  lovely  forms,  lines  that  would 
almost  seem  to  be  lyrical,  and  colours  that 
would  almost  seem  to  sing.  But  as  he 
looked  on  all  things  he  saw  that  nothing 
remained.  Nothing  lived.  Udvra  pel  OvSh 
fxevei.  Everywhere  there  was  disintegration 
and  decay  ;  and  that  not  always  of  a  benign 
and  gentle,  but  often  of  a  violent  and  even 
cruel,  character.  Something,  sooner  or  later, 
would  cut  athwart  the  sweet  skein  of  exist- 
ing things.  The  flower  that  had  but  blown 
yesterday,  and  which  would  have  glowed 
to-day  with   a  surpassing  beauty,  was  last 


44  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

night  shattered  by  heavy  rain.  That  little 
head  of  golden  curls,  which  last  week  was 
a  glory  to  behold,  was  now  but  a  painful 
memory  in  a  mother's  broken  heart.  That 
lovely  city  by  the  sea,  that  city  of  song  and 
laughter,  of  precious  stones  and  fine  linen, 
of  rich  colour  and  incense,  in  one  hour,  had 
come  to  nought,  and  was  desolate  and  full 
of  grief.  Nothing  was  sure.  To-morrow 
always  lay  behind  the  door  of  Death.  But 
whether  the  Difficult  Day  came  by  degrees 
or  of  a  sudden,  in  silence  or  in  sound,  the 
Horror  inevitably  fell ;  until  it  seemed  that 
behind  all  Life,  whether  in  the  shadow  of 
night  or  in  the  blaze  of  midday  sun,  there 
ever  followed  "  Murder  with  his  silent 
bloody  feet."  He  himself  had  been  struck 
with  it  even  as  a  lad.  He  could  no  doubt 
recall  many  a  Spring  when  the  Breath  of 
Life  itself  appeared  to  inspire  the  whole 
Earth,  just  at  the  time  when  troops  of 
Cappadocian  youths  would  assemble  to  pay 
their  customary  honours  to  Demeter.  At- 
tracted first  by  the  sound  of  their  simple 


THE  CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        45 

hymn,  which  was  chanted  alternately  by  the 
rustic  companies,  as  they  moved  forward  in 
measured  and  rhythmic  steps  of  stately  pro- 
cession or  solemn  dance,  he  would  draw 
near  to  look  with  a  sort  of  natural  curiosity. 
But  he  would  grow  strangely  troubled  as 
suddenly,  in  a  lull  between  the  antiphonal 
refrain,  he  would  hear  the  piteous  bleating 
of  a  little  lamb,  and  anon  he  would  see  it, 
a  victim  dedicated  to  the  Goddess,  led  thrice 
around  the  tender  crops,  clad  in  rich  vest- 
ments and  garlanded  with  flowers  ;  and  his 
soul  would  shudder  at  the  sight,  and  the 
pools  of  pity  in  his  heart  would  tremble  as 
he  saw  that  the  life  which  he  loved  was 
about  to  be  quenched. 

And  now  at  a  later  age,  when  his  sensi- 
tive intellect  had  received  an  acute  emotion 
and  sudden  stimulus  in  the  great  bereave- 
ment he  had  suffered,  the  old  problem  of 
Light  and  Darkness,  of  Flux  and  Repose, 
of  the  launching  Lightning  Flash  and  the 
Voice  that  roars  after  it  in  the  Dark,  pre- 
sented itself  to  him  with  inevitable  urgency. 


46  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

Brooding  over  the  many  speculative 
systems  of  philosophical  culture,  he  felt,  to  a 
disturbing  degree,  the  unsatisfying  spirit  of 
their  results. 

Beneath  the  countless  combinations  under 
which  Life  was  manifest ;  beneath  the  per- 
petual cycle  of  Birth,  Growth,  Death,  and 
Dissolution  ;  beneath  the  chastening  separa- 
tive elements  of  time  and  place,  the  gulf 
betwixt  soul  and  soul,  the  infinite  distance 
between  God  and  Man — was  there  co-ordi- 
nation or  unity  ?  Was  there  a  golden 
thread  to  be  found  to  lead  him  out  of  this 
vast  and  intricate  Daedalism,  this  agony 
that  was  ageless,  this  misery  that  endured  ? 
For  long  days  and  through  weary  nights  he 
sought,  in  severe  intellectual  contemplation, 
some  answer  to  his  questionings  ;  and  partly 
through  that  idealism  which  was  ever  an 
element  in  his  character  and  partly  through 
that  activity  which  was  purely  physical  and 
which  his  physical  powers  demanded,  his 
thoughts  went  back  to  the  old,  dim,  theo- 
logical and  supra-sensible  doctrines  of  Py tha- 


THE   CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        47 

goras — vague,  of  course,  and  very  far-off, 
yet  containing  within  themselves  principles 
suggestive  of  harmony  and  unity  ;^  and  in 
the  life  of  the  Sage  himself  there  was  the 
example  of  actual  and  real  behaviour  in 
every-day  life. 

But  meantime  the  affairs  of  his  family 
required  his  presence  in  his  native  city ;  and 
so,  after  some  days  of  silent  meditation, 
and  pondering  still,  with  an  entirely  quick- 
ened interest,  all  the  sayings  of  the  great 
sages  on  the  strange  and  baffling  Mystery 
of  Death,  he  set  out  for  his  own  country  ; 
bidding  farewell  for  a  while  to  the  peaceful 
College  and  carrying  with  him  the  regrets 
and  sympathies  of  the  whole  ^sculapian 
brotherhood. 

On  reaching  Tyana  he  found  that  his 
property  (for  he  was  not  yet  of  age)  had 
been  seized  by  his  elder  brother,  who,  with 
no  eye  of  love,  beheld  him,  as  coming  to 
demand  and  claim  his  own.  But  Apollonius, 
feeling  it  to  be  his  vocation  to  renew  the 

^  VUe  MahafFy's  Greek  Worlds  etc.,  already  cited. 


48  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

sacrifice  of  his  affections  and  to  dedicate 
himself  afresh  to  sacred  Philosophy,  with 
sweet  words  and  kind  looks,  bestowed  half 
of  his  inheritance  on  his  brother,  and  by 
this  act  reclaimed  him  from  an  evil  life  :  for 
in  very  sooth  the  good  man  loves  most 
and  suffers  most  and  most  forgives. 

Having  thus  for  a  time  freed  himself 
from  worldly  cares,  he  answered  with  ex- 
ceeding joy  the  call  of  his  heart ;  and  with- 
drawing to  the  solitudes  of  Cappadocia  and 
Cilicia  he  sought  to  honour  the  Silent  Muse 
and  by  an  actual  example  to  place  life  above 
philosophy  or  reasoning — in  a  word  to  put 
his  philosophical  theories  into  real  practice. 
Here  for  five  years  he  preserved  unbroken 
silence,  contemplating  divine  things,  until  it 
almost  seemed  that  his  life  had  become  one 
long  colloquy  with  God.  And  here,  in  the 
deep  shadows  of  the  Taurus  range  or  in  the 
dark  pass  of  Pylae,  by  the  bleak  and  lonely 
Euxine  Sea  or  by  the  sinuous  bendings  of 
the  Halys  River,  he  found  the  immense 
Peace  of  Nature  and  took  it  into  the  sane- 


THE   CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        49 

tuary  of  his  being.  Welcoming  it  there,  pre- 
serving it  there,  almost  worshipping  it  there 
as  the  presence  of  a  God  in  the  shrine  of  his 
soul,  he  learnt  so  to  identify  himself  with 
that  Spirit,  not  in  a  momentary  participation 
or  fitful  approach,  but  in  the  continuous 
communion  which  was  his  life,  that  it  never 
thereafter  ceased  to  sanctify  and  control  his 
whole  existence,  passing  out  into  all  his  days 
to  come  and  projecting  itself  into  every 
future  thought  and  act,  however  trivial, 
absorbing  and  informing  each  with  a  des- 
tinative  calm.  In  following  this  mode  of 
life  Apollonius  was  not  altogether  alone. 
He  was  merely  adopting  for  his  own  re- 
quirements what  had  already  become  a  fairly 
common  custom  throughout  Greece.  City 
life,  in  that  old  land  of  liberty,  had  grown  so 
exacting  and  so  full  of  stress  that  a  great 
re-action  had  set  in  for  a  return  to  Nature — 
to  the  simple  life.  It  was  then  something 
as  it  is  to-day  in  England,  where  all  the 
activities  of  life  have  centred  into  huge  and 
hustling  cities,  in  which  the  struggle  to  live 


so  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

is  becoming  fiercer  every  day,  and  the 
piteous  cry  of  the  weaker  ones  already  fills 
the  air  :  "  Back  to  the  land.  Back  to 
Nature.  Back  to  the  simple  life."  In  the 
days  of  Apollonius,  then,  we  find  persons 
casting  off  the  bonds  of  urban  life  and  seek- 
ing, instead,  the  freedom  and  the  calm  of 
fields  and  forests  ;  and  there  are  many 
instances  of  the  extremes  to  which  this  life 
was  carried  by  those  whose  one  desire  was 
to  escape  the  weary  world. 

The  fame  of  so  earnest  a  Solitary  passed 
soon  through  Cappadocia,  Cilicia  and  Pam- 
phylia  ;  and  those  who  were  weary  with  the 
weight  of  life,  and  those  who  were  sad  with 
Faith's  perplexities,  came,  like  pilgrims,  to 
the  haunts  of  the  Tyanean.  "  Wouldest 
thou  but  talk  with  Apollonius,  thy  relief  is 
sure"  So  spake  the  sacred  Oracle  of  MgXy 
and  relying  upon  words  spoken  from  the 
very  tripod  of  the  God,  multitudes  came  to 
him  for  comfort  and  for  help — for  the  days 
of  a  good  man  are  swift — some  to  copy  the 
manner   of  his   life,    taking    some    of  his 


THE  CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        51 

heavenly  acts  or  virtues  to  polish  them,  so 
to  say,  in  their  own  persons  ;  others,  again, 
more  pious,  believing  in  his  thaumaturgic 
powers,  would  come  that  he  might  pray  over 
them,  at  least  silently.  As  it  is  with  us 
to-day,  so  it  was  with  them  then,  it  is  only 
he  who  doubts  miracle  must  cease  to  pray, 
for  when  one  prays  one  asks  a  miracle  :  but 
all,  even  the  most  wretched,  wished  to  see 
him  and,  if  possible,  to  converse  with  him, 
but  at  all  events  to  be  near  him,  for  they 
instinctively  felt,  as  we  do  in  our  time  also, 
that  in  the  presence  of  what  is  great  and 
good  there  goes  out  a  hidden  virtue  for  the 
weak. 

So  numerous  and  so  intent  did  earnest 
seekers  become,  that  a  proverb  swiftly  ran 
amongst  the  inhabitants  of  those  places,  as 
they  beheld  the  ceaseless  streams  of  votaries 
hastening  hither  and  thither  through  the 
land  that  they  might  be  entered  in  his 
discipleship  :  "  Whither  run  ye,"  it  went ; 
"  whither  run  ye  so  swift  ?  Is  it  to  see  the 
young    man  ? "      And     the    young     man, 


52  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

possessing  this  singular  quality  of  attraction, 
was  so  touched  with  inexpressible  com- 
passion for  the  countless  souls,  burdened 
with  spiritual  distress  or  bodily  infirmity, 
that,  though  in  no  ways  breaking  through 
his  self-ordained  restrictions,  he  would 
often  silently  enfold  in  his  thin  palms  the 
pained  hand  of  another  until,  through  the 
very  sympathy  of  contact  and  tenderness  of 
touch,  it  would  appear  that  the  burden  of 
sorrow  had  passed  away  and  the  physical 
suffering  had  ceased  to  be  ;  or  again,  upon 
some  other  occasion,  stretching  forth  his 
white  hands  over  some  afflicted  face,  he 
would  say  nothing,  but  with  eyes  com- 
passionate and  dim  would  speak  with  tears, 
"  showing  kind  thoughts  in  symbol." 

Something  so  full  of  grace  and  sweet,  we 
are  told,  was  in  his  manner  of  expressing 
his  thoughts  that  his  very  eyes  and  his 
hands  and  the  motions  of  his  head  would 
make  significant  answer  to  whatever  was 
said  by  those  who  sought  his  counsel  or  his 
help. 


THE  CONTEMPLATIVE  LIFE        53 

During  the  earlier  part  of  this  great 
period  of  silent  reflection,  when  Loneliness 
and  Silence  first  made  for  him  unbroken 
paths  to  God,  the  mind  of  Apollonius  must 
have  dwelt  long  on  the  various  harmonies 
of  Day  and  Night,  the  moving  rhythms  of 
Summer  and  Winter,  and  all  the  recurrent 
motifs  in  Life  and  Death,  which  made  the 
whole  Universe  seem  Music  —  religious 
music  with  an  austere  and  deep  reserve. 

It  is,  of  course,  quite  impossible  for  us 
now,  after  two  thousand  years,  to  know,  not 
to  say,  to  precise,  all  the  various  searchings 
of  the  mind  of  this  son  of  Pythagoras 
during  these  years  of  secret  communing. 
Like  the  "pious  poet,"  in  Tristesse  de  la 
Lune^  into  the  hollow  of  whose  hand  the 
moon  had  dropped  a  pale  tear,  irised  like  a 
piece  of  opal  with  her  own  reflections,  he 
has  hidden  the  lovely  pearl-like  secret  in 
his  heart  far  from  the  eyes  of  our  day  ;  but 
at  least  we  may  conjecture  the  movements 

1  One  of  Charles  Baudelaire's  poems  in  Les  Fleurs  du 
Mai  (Calmann-Levy.     Paris). 


54  APOLLONIUS  OF  TYANA 

of  his  mind,  as  following  the  mystic 
measures  and  inward  music  of  his  great 
master,  and  studying,  in  his  own  vital  ex- 
periences, his  exquisite  science  of  Harmony 
and  Law,  Proportion  and  Number,  he 
arrived  gradually  at  the  conception  of  the 
abstract  Unity  of  God.  Ideas  which  had 
formerly  met  and  long  struggled  within  his 
soul,  and  problems  in  Life  and  Philosophy 
which  long  had  seemed  irreconcilable,  now 
appeared  to  harmonise  and  resolve  in  the 
new  Synthesis  ;  for  he  saw — indistinctly  at 
first,  but  nevertheless  with  an  increasing 
clearness — beneath  the  multiplicity  of  gods, 
beneath  all  gods,  but  one  God,  and  in  all 
their  various  rites  and  worships  but  the 
Protean  shapes  of  one  Divinity  ;  and  also 
beneath  the  multiplicity  of  life,  beneath  all 
life,  but  one  Life — Life  deathless  and  strong 
— the  Life  the  Gods  or  rather  the  God  en- 
joyed in  full,  the  Life  Man  partook  of  in 
part.  He  felt  that  under  the  superficial 
aspect  of  all  life  ;  beneath  its  fleeting  forms 
and    changing  colours,  melodies,  and  per- 


THE  CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        $5 

fumes  ;  beneath  the  various  and  ever  fugi- 
tive phases  or  states  which  mortals  name 
Birth,  Growth,  Decay,  Death,  and  the  like, 
was  the  basal  Life-stream,  the  eternal  Life- 
force  in  ceaseless  energy,  on  the  surface  of 
which  he  himself  existed  for  a  moment, 
participating  for  that  moment,  in  some 
measure,  in  its  vitality.  So  beneath  all  life 
there  was  one  Life.  Though  men  died,  yet 
there  lived  the  mighty  dead,  inasmuch  as 
Life  and  Death  grew  out  of  the  one  Stem. 
There  was  Life  deeper,  more  intimate  than 
that  whereof  men  knew — a  Life  which 
bound  in  one  the  living  and  the  dead  ;  a 
Life  which  was  the  Life  of  the  Eternal  God. 
And  since  all  life  was  one,  the  human  soul 
was  linked  to  the  Divine  by  identity  of 
Substance,  the  Ethereal  Light  Substance, 
which  Apollonius  conceived  to  be  the 
Essence  of  the  Deity,  and  which  he  believed 
was  shared,  in  a  lesser  or  greater  degree, 
by  the  soul  that  is  good.  So  he,  devoted 
to  the  service  of  the  divine,  believed  that 
he  himself  was  in  a  sense  divine,  and  in  a 


56  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

sense  God.  The  lesser  or  greater  degree 
of  deification  depended  entirely  upon  him- 
self, who  could  annihilate  it  by  an  evil  life 
or  could  develop  it  by  a  pure  and  excellent 
one.  Exceptional  holiness  would  produce 
exceptional  wisdom ;  and  exceptional  wisdom 
would  produce  exceptional  fulness  of  Life. 
Hence,  he  appraised  the  necessity  for  the 
uplifted  life,  the  life  free  from  all  excess  or 
intemperance,  the  ascetic  life,  keeping  the 
custody  of  the  senses,  guarding  the  gravity 
of  the  outer  man,  presenting  sweetness  of 
manner  to  all  and  severity  towards  himself, 
refraining  from  destroying  any  life  what- 
ever, on  account  of  its  inestimable  value, 
and  even  refusing  to  eat  flesh  or  to  drink 
wine  lest  such  an  act  would  profane,  though 
but  in  a  minor  degree,  what  was  after  all  to 
him  the  only  true  temple  in  all  the  world — 
the  temple  of  the  human  body.  Thus  the 
new  Life — a  nuova  vita — opened  out  before 
him,  broadening  ever  more  and  more  and 
demanding  in  the  devious  byways,  no 
less  than  in   the   main  avenue,  of  his  life 


THE  CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        57 

a  care  and  attention  which  he  had  thereto- 
fore not  even  suspected.  O  fair  white 
Hands,  how  can  you  now  touch  feet  that 
are  foul  ?  O  gentle  Eyes,  bright  with  the 
burning  breath  of  an  unimaginable  beauty, 
how  can  you  bear  to  gaze  on  souls  that  are 
deformed  ?  Why  do  you  now  seek  for 
faces  that  are  tinted  with  the  wan  hues  of 
pain  or  decay  as  at  something  lacking  in 
the  fulness  of  life  or  the  perfection  of 
form  ? 

In  every  dead  rose  there  is  the  remem- 
brance of  the  colour  of  the  Dawn.  In 
every  death-bell  the  memorare  of  the  Angelus ; 
and  in  the  mystery  of  Death  is  wrapped 
the  mystery  of  immortal  Love.  And  so 
it  was  that  by  the  method  of  Pythagoras, 
of  him  who  had  attuned  the  ears  of 
men  to  measured  movement  and  ordered 
melody,  the  formerly  insoluble  mystery  of 
sorrow  and  suffering  seemed  to  clear,  and 
the  early  difficulty  of  decay  and  death  to 
melt  away.  These,  heretofore,  seemed  out 
of  place   in    the   economy   of  life.      Now 


58  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

they  had  their  rightful  setting  there.  There 
was  the  divine  necessity  of  death.  There 
was  also  the  divine  necessity  of  suffering. 
Aei  iraOelv.  Aei  airapprjcraarOai  kavrov.  He 
must  renounce  this  fugitive  phase  that  men 
name  life  in  order  to  gain  the  fulness  of 
the  endless  and  fundamental  Life.  And  in 
this  renunciation  he  would  find  increase  of 
virtue.     Virtus  vulnere  virescit. 

In  his  younger  days  he  had  instinctively 
sought  Good.  When,  at  times,  he  joined 
in  the  solemn  Olaa-oL  and  sacred  opyewveg 
how  many  a  secret  joy  had  he  not  experi- 
enced, as  in  some  marvellously  rich  moments 
of  supreme  adoration  he  had  felt  himself, 
as  it  would  seem  to  him,  seized  and  flooded 
with  an  inexpressible  measure  of  the  Divine 
Light-Substance,  with  a  sense  of  a  Presence 
that  could  only  be  of  God  !  But  now 
there  must  be  also  the  more  strenuous 
hours,  the  days  that  would  be  difficult,  the 
years  that  would  be  dark.  Strenuous, 
difficult,  and  dark  they  might  be,  but  in  the 
arid    wastes   he   at   least    would    now    see 


THE   CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        59 

streams  of  waters  bursting  forth,  and  where 
desert  places  were,  there  would  be  pools 
moving  with  the  music  of  tall  reeds  and 
green  grass.  A  highway  would  be  there 
and  a  way.  A  way  called  the  way  of  holi- 
ness, where  the  unclean  in  heart  and  lips 
could  not  pass,  but  where  the  pure  in  heart, 
though  simple,  could  not  lose  his  way  or 
err. 

There  is  a  picture  in  the  Louvre  which, 
though  unfinished,  is  so  graciously  and  so 
subtly  conceived  that  some  have,  not  in- 
judiciously, ascribed  it  to  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  that  master  of  complex  meanings  and 
strangely  implicated  thoughts  in  line  and 
colour.  It  is  entitled  A  Bacchus,  Far 
away,  through  a  liquid  splendour  of  midday 
heat  and  mist,  peers  a  low  but  massive 
mountain.  Midway  in  heaven's  high  blue 
a  slender  birch  hangs  out  its  delicacies  of 
silvery  foliage,  floating  all  tremulous  and 
pale.  On  a  nearer,  though  still  distant, 
slope,  a  dappled  deer  with  lifted  antlers 
scents  the  air  ;  and  the  green  sward  close 


6o  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

by  is  bright  with  flowers.  But  in  the  cool 
shade  of  a  rich  brown  bank  is  seated  one — 
prominent  and  grand — whose  splendid  and 
naked  loveliness  is  a  delight  to  see.  His 
eyes,  deep,  dark  and  purple-warm,  are  those 
of  a  god.  A  god's,  too,  his  brow,  decked 
with  the  vine-leaf.  The  Bacchic  thyrsus  lies 
along  his  curved  arm.  His  countenance  is 
earnest.  His  gaze  intense.  He  wins  your 
attention — but  only  to  divert  it.  With  long 
and  fascinating  forefinger  he  points  invit- 
ingly from  the  sunlit  champaign  to  some- 
thing dark,  far-off  and  unknown.  Then 
in  some  unimaginable  way  the  loin-cloth 
of  leopard's  fur  becomes  a  girdle  of 
camel's  hair  ;  the  slanting  thyrsus  a  desert 
staff;  and  the  form  of  earnest  entreaty 
a  prophet.  Surely  it  is  the  Baptist  who, 
turning  his  back  upon  the  sunlit  world, 
would  have  you  know  that  more  enduring 
joys  lie  beyond  that  impenetrable  darkness 
towards  which  he  points.  And  well  might 
this  canvas  depict  Apollonius  of  Tyana 
during  the  period  of  his  reclusion  in  the  fairer 


THE   CONTEMPLATIVE   LIFE        61 

fields  of  silent  Cappadocia,  directing,  so  to 
say,  the  passer-by  or  devoted  inquirer  away 
from  the  wearying  brightness  and  passing 
pleasures  of  his  ephemeral  day  to  the  mystery 
of  a  peace  far  off  and  unknown,  and  only  to 
be  attained  by  passing  through  the  shadows 
and  severities  of  life. 


IV 

THE   ACTIVE   LIFE 

1I>UT  now  for  him  the  contemplative  life 
had  ceased.  The  active  was  to  begin. 
The  long  period  of  extreme  mental  tension 
had  ended.  A  fresh  mode  of  life  was  to 
be  undertaken. 

Some  say  that  those  long  years  of  severe 
self-restraint  formed  the  appointed  initiation 
into  the  Pythagorean  brotherhood.  We  can 
find  no  organised  Pythagorean  society,  no 
actual  brotherhood,  into  which  at  the  time 
Apollonius  was  received.  On  the  contrary, 
we  find  him  then  Master  :  a  follower  indeed 
of  Pythagoras,  but  yet  a  Master.  He 
calls  disciples  :  they  follow.  He  commands  : 
they  obey. 

He  was  already  famous.  Renowned  for 
his  skill  in  the  intricate  laws  of  ritual  and 
62 


THE   ACTIVE  LIFE  63 

the  hieratic  mysteries,  he  was  yet  more 
celebrated  for  the  spiritual  heights  and  lofty 
mental  planes  to  which  he  had  attained. 
His  speech  too  had  in  it  a  kind  of  celestial 
eloquence,  so  excellent  indeed  and  so 
weighted  with  rich  thought  that,  it  is  said, 
his  very  words  were  collected  as  in  chalices 
out  of  which  all  who  would  quenched  their 
thirst ;  and  the  graces  of  his  person  were  so 
attractive  that  they  were  even  remarkable  in 
a  land  where  beauty  of  form  or  address  was 
the  common  property  of  the  race. 

Yet  there  were  deeper  excellences  to  be 
acquired,  wider  aims  to  be  achieved,  higher 
powers  to  be  attained.  Whither  then  would 
he  go  ?  To  Greece,  the  home  of  all  culture, 
the  hearth  whereon  the  fire  of  faith  and 
science  had  been  kindled  and  had  flamed  ? 
No,  not  now.  Some  centuries  ago,  if  he 
had  then  lived,  he  might  have  looked  to 
Athens  or  to  Corinth.  But  not  now.  For 
with  the  Roman  conquest  of  Greece,  Mace- 
donia and  Asia  Minor,  the  fairer  religions 
of  Greece  had  become  degraded  to  a  con- 


64  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

siderable  extent  by  the  materialistic  Latin 
thought.  Even  then,  in  Apollonius*s  time, 
Hellenic  religion  was  vastly  higher  than 
Roman.  It  always  was.  The  Romans  never 
possessed  a  true  religious  sense.  A  hard 
and  narrow  ceremonialism  satisfied  them. 
They  produced  no  legends.  They  evolved 
no  myths.  They  never  even  conceived  of 
Gods.  They  made  no  representations  of 
them.  They  worshipped  they  knew  not 
what.  Such  they  were  in  earlier  times. 
Such  they  were  really  still.  The  Greeks,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  by  nature  devout  and 
imaginative.  Their  religions  were  expansive, 
flexible,  adaptable.  They  marked  the  spi- 
ritual forces  behind  the  natural  phenomena. 
They  conceived  of  these  forces  as  deities  ; 
and  they  gave  them  form  in  metal  and  stone 
and  clay.  The  Greek  artist  pursued  these 
conceptions  ;  and  his  sculptured  or  molten 
figures  were  no  mere  idols,  but  the  repre- 
sentations of  the  mysterious  Powers  behind 
the  natural  objects  of  sense.  Stand  to-day 
before  a  marble  statue  of  some  noble  Posei- 


THE   ACTIVE   LIFE  65 

don  or  Glaucus,  and  you  too  will  seem  to 
hear  the  surging  of  the  great  waters  in  those 
ears,  and  you  too  will  see  all  the  ocean 
floating  in  those  eyes.  The  Greeks  believed 
in  these  forces.  The  Romans  did  not.  The 
Greek  approached  them  with  head  uncovered. 
The  Roman  refused  to  bare  his  head.  The 
sons  of  Italy,  if  they  prayed  at  all,  prayed 
for  such  solid  blessings  as  food  and  land  and 
money.  The  sons  of  Greece  sought  for 
moral  force  and  spiritual  excellence  ;  for  the 
Eastern  counted  on  a  future  existence,  the 
Western  only  on  the  present. 

Hence  one  of  the  results  of  the  Roman 
conquest  and  her  sway  was  to  lower  and 
materialise  Greek  spiritual  thought. 

It  may  be  well  to  qualify  here  the  word 
"  religion "  as  used  in  regard  to  the  old 
Hellenic  world.  Religion,  as  we  know  it — 
the  worship  of  a  Supreme  Being,  ineffable,  in- 
visible, incomprehensible  and  eternal — was 
then  non-existent.  Even  in  the  period  of  the 
highest  culture  it  did  not  exist.  Nay,  it  was 
actually  avoided  ;  and  one  might  almost  say 


66  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

that  because  it  was  avoided  that  lofty 
culture  was  reached.  For  the  excellences  of 
all  Greek  Art  were  achieved  through  the 
frank  recognition  of  the  limited  scope  of 
human  powers.  Within  the  definite  bounds 
of  the  human  mind,  which  they  had  explored 
and  charted  as  we  chart  the  seas,  perfection 
was  sought  and  attained.  Outside  that  they 
refused  to  go.  They  never  soared  after  the 
infinite  God.  He  was  out  of  sight,  out  of 
range,  unknowable.  Their  very  philosophies 
turned  deliberately  away  from  Him.  Religion 
as  the  Greeks  knew  it  for  some  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era  was  the  personifica- 
tion and  cultus,  always  local  and  particular, 
of  the  vast  and  minor  forces,  full  of  mystery 
to  their  minds,  of  Wind  and  Sea  and  Forest 
and  Mountain,  and  the  Power  behind  all 
objects  of  sense  and  motion  and  thought. 
In  course  of  time  wider  conceptions  and 
deeper  beliefs  came  in  from  Egypt  through 
Crete  and  from  the  Far  East  countries. 
Amongst  these  newer  faiths  and  rites  were 
the  Mysteries,  but  they  were  separate  from, 


THE   ACTIVE   LIFE  67 

and  indeed  antagonistic  to,  the  true  Hellenic 
culture.  Time  was  to  bring  its  revenge, 
and  the  years,  ay  the  centuries,  were  to  come 
when  Greek  minds  would  be  all  aflame  with 
desire  to  sound  the  fathomless  Thought  of 
God,  and  when  they  would  scale  heights  in 
the  Nature  and  Essence  of  the  Divine  Being 
such  as  were  never  scaled  before  or  since. 
But  the  time  had  not  yet  come.  It  was  but 
the  earliest  moments  of  the  Dawn.  And 
here  in  the  faintly  tracked  ways  of  early 
spiritual  adventure  we  can  trace  the  first 
sure  desires  for  the  Day,  the  first  gropings 
towards  the  distant  Light.  And  in  the  poor 
magician  and  dreamer,  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
we  can  see  one  who,  looking  up  to  heaven, 
essayed  to  ascend  thither  and  to  soar  out  of 
the  narrow  bounds  and  definite  limits  of 
human  experience. 

Another  result  of  Roman  rule  was  its 
withering  effect  upon  the  material  and  social 
life  of  the  Greek-speaking  peoples.  We 
have  noted  how  the  religion  of  Rome  was 
inferior  to   that  of  Greece.     She  was  also 


68  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

lower  in  the  scale  of  civilisation.  With  her 
practical  common  sense  she  had  recognised 
this  ;  and  had  left  most  of  the  great  Greek 
social  institutions  intact  to  the  conquered 
provinces.  But  otherwise  her  sway  was 
blighting.  Her  financial  administration  was 
unjust  and  immoral.  It  depopulated  and 
impoverished  the  whole  Empire ;  and  it 
ruined  the  general  material  prosperity  and 
the  moral  constitution  of  Hellenic  cities 
and  lands.  Rome  drained  the  wealth  of  all 
her  conquered  provinces,  and  the  vast 
Empire  was  plundered  for  the  support  of  the 
Imperial  City.  The  accumulated  treasures 
of  centuries  were  shamefully  dispersed  in 
maintaining  immense  armies  and  in  supply- 
ing grain  gratuitously  to  feed  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  her  idle  citizens.  As  a  con- 
sequence social  and  moral  energy  had  de- 
clined. Honest  labour  was  despised  and 
considered  a  degradation.  Corruption  was 
rampant  and  religion  was  decadent.  Count- 
less numbers  of  Greeks  were  compelled  to 
sell  themselves  as  slaves  because  they  could 


THE   ACTIVE   LIFE  69 

not  pay  the  extortionate  and  cruel  im- 
positions. The  slave  market  was  the  only 
prosperous  one. 

Even  many  years  after,  when  Apollonius 
was  in  the  old  land  of  liberty,  endeavouring 
to  reform  her  religion  and  rekindle  her 
faith,  he  felt  compelled  to  write  to  the 
Museum  at  Alexandria,  then  the  great  centre 
of  learning  and  culture  of  the  civilised 
world,  in  such  words  as  these  :  e^ap^apwOrjv 
ov  xpovLO^  (lov  CKJy  'EXXa^o?  aWa  ^ovio^  (ov  ev 
*EXXa<5t.  "  I  have  become  barbarised,  not  by 
staying  away  from  Greece,  but  by  staying  in 
Greece." 

How  could  he  then  turn  Westward  and 
look  there  for  hope  of  better  things  .?  How 
could  he  draw  inspiration  from  the  mate- 
rialistic Roman  ?  The  love  of  his  country 
was  in  his  heart.  He  longed  to  see  her 
restored  and  reformed  morally  and  spirit- 
ually :  and  his  one  clear  and  definite  aim 
now  was  to  fit  himself  for  the  great  work — 
the  work  of  his  life — the  restoration  and 
revival  of  true  religion,  as  he  knew  it,  not 


70  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

only  in  his  own  Hellenic  land,  but  through- 
out the  Roman  Empire.  A  vast  under- 
taking, a  tremendous  task !  And  where 
could  he  fit  himself  properly  and  adequately 
for  it  ?  Where,  but  in  the  East,  whence 
had  always  come  the  higher  faiths  and  hopes, 
the  devotions  and  enthusiasms,  without 
which  religion  is  vain  ?  Did  not  the  Samian 
Sage  himself  seek,  centuries  previous,  the 
lands  beneath  the  rising  sun  and  hold  con- 
verse there  with  people  pre-eminent  in 
virtue  and  spiritual  adventure  ?  And  Apol- 
lonius  felt  that  he  too  must  follow  that 
great  example  if  he  were  to  succeed  in  the 
vast  undertaking  proposed  to  himself — the 
spiritual  regeneration  of  life  in  the  whole 
Roman  and  Hellenic  world. 


APOLLONIUS   TRAVELS  TO   INDIA 

'TpHE  call  of  many  countries  was  in  his 
ears.  Where  the  voice  of  Wisdom 
called,  there  he  would  go — be  it  to  the  land 
of  the  Arabian  famous  for  his  perfumes, 
or  to  Egypt  the  country  whence  all  the 
Gods,  save  Poseidon  and  Here,  had  come, 
or  to  the  land  upon  the  extreme  verge 
of  the  world,  beyond  the  confines  of  the 
flowing-robed  Arsacidae,  beneath  the  earliest 
beams  of  the  rising  stars,  where  the  keen 
crescent  first  cuts  the  blue.  Yes  !  There 
from  that  far-off  land  of  India  the  call  was 
clearest.     And  there  first  he  went. 

Fastidious,  not  only  in  his  person,  but  in 
his    speech,    he    attached,  prior   to  his   de- 
parture,  two  domestics  as   secretaries,    one 
eminent    for  the    despatch    with    which    he 
71 


72  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

wrote  and  the  other  for  the  remarkable 
beauty  and  the  artistic  form  of  his  lettering. 

On  entering  Mesopotamia,  the  Custom- 
house officer  approached  the  travellers  with 
his  toll-book  and  requested  the  Sage  to 
declare,  for  excisable  purposes,  what  com- 
modities he  was  bringing  into  the  country. 
"  Patience,  Temperance,  Justice,  and  Forti- 
tude," replied  Apollonius,  naming  these  and 
other  virtues  by  feminine  names.  The  tax 
collector  wrote  each  down  carefully  in  his 
book  and  then  inquired  if  they  were  his 
maids.  "  No,"  answered  the  philosopher, 
"  they  are  my  Mistresses." 

After  spending  some  time  at  Nineveh, 
where  Damis,  his  disciple  and  jidus  Achates^ 
attached  himself  to  his  person,  and  having 
visited  the  great  King  of  Babylon,  he  set 
out,  with  his  followers,  for  India,  mounted 
upon  the  royal  camels  and  preceded  by  one 
bearing  an  ornament  of  gold  upon  its 
forehead,  signifying  thereby  that  one  of  the 
King's  friends  was  on  the  road. 

Each  day  the  desire  of  the  spiritual  East 


APOLLONIUS  TRAVELS  TO  INDIA     73 

grew  more  and  more  on  him  ;  and  each  day 
above  the  mighty  Himalaya  with  their 
immense  and  silver  screen  of  fretted  pallid 
peaks,  he  saw,  flashing  more  and  more 
resplendent  (for  it  was  approaching  summer) 
the  glorious  solar  diadem  of  the  Deity. 
Day  by  day  he  journeyed  on 

O'er  the  aerial  mountains  which  pour  down 
Indus  and  Oxus  from  their  icy  caves, 

wending  his  way  through  maze  of  mist  and 
mountain,  where  no  tree  or  flower  could 
live,  and  snatching  some  little  repose  at 
times  beneath  the  immense  white  Moon, 
the  great  Jewel  of  Asia,  the  Virginal  Queen 
of  Heaven,  until  at  length  he  came  to  places 
clothed  with  aromatic  plants,  and  saw  the 
warm  cinnamon  growing  on  the  high  hills 
and  the  incense-bearing  trees  flowering  in 
the  valleys. 

By  many  strange  waters  and  sacred  rivers 
he  passed,  and  anon  with  joy  beheld  dark 
pilgrims,  with  eyes  devout  and  mournful, 
pacing  in  prayer  by  their  banks,  calling  the 


74  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

streams  by  their  names,  and  casting  sweet- 
smelling  flowers  and  fragrant  spices  into 
their  softly  murmuring  waves. 

In  fine,  after  many  months,  the  little 
party  reached  the  sacred  goal  of  their  pil- 
grimage, the  mystic  Monsalvat,  the  Holy 
Hill  inhabited  by  the  Wise  Men  of  the 
East.  High  up  the  mountain  stood,  like 
the  Acropolis  of  Athens,  defended  on  all 
sides  by  immense  piles  of  rocks.  A  great 
mist  crowned  the  summit,  which  seemed  to 
raise  itself  aloft  beyond  the  clouds  into  the 
very  intimate  music  of  the  spheres. 

Here  now,  at  last,  was  the  veritable  Gar- 
den of  the  Gods,  the  paradise  of  solitary 
souls,  where  minds,  alert  and  attentive, 
might  enter  and  breathe  a  rarer  and  diviner 
air,  and  where,  in  its  immense  peace,  the 
repose  and  sweet  savour  of  contemplation, 
so  ardently  desired,  could  at  length  be  fully 
attained. 

With  a  graciousness  refined  to  a  perfect 
degree,  the  whole  fraternity — both  aged 
professors  and  young  students — of  the  ^/ooi'- 


APOLLONIUS  TRAVELS  TO  INDIA     75 

Tia-Tvpiov  received  the  Alastor-like  guest;  for 
he  seemed  to  them  like  "a  poet  who  had 
wandered  all  his  life  long  through  the  world, 
seeking  with  a  heart  on  fire  for  the  flower- 
like face  he  could  never  find  "  :  and,  on  his 
part,  he  found  in  the  brethren  men  who 
cared  not  for  the  propagation  of  the  vine  or 
the  tilling  of  the  ground,  but  who  cultivated 
instead  a  knowledge  and  wisdom  higher  and 
more  celestial  than  that  known  in  Greece 
— men  whose  very  language  was  a  sort  of 
shrine  and  whose  souls  seemed  to  be  deep 
reservoirs  of  divine  resignation.  He  could 
not  contemplate  their  faces  but  he  saw  in 
them  as  it  were  something  of  the  solemn 
light  of  temples  ;  and  the  still  atmosphere, 
of  which  they  almost  seemed  a  part,  appeared 
to  possess  in  itself  the  gentle  melancholy  of 
a  faint  breeze  which  bears  the  soft  tolling  of 
a  far-off  passing-bell. 

Ascetics  such  as  these  which  greeted 
ApoUonius  are  not  unknown  to-day  even 
outside  of  Buddhist  lands  ;  for  in  our  own 
Europe  one  may  see  something  of  the  same 


76  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

peculiar  temper  in  Sclavonic  recluses.  In 
that  land  of  immensity,  of  loneliness  and 
silence,  where  nothing  is  relative  and  every- 
thing is  absolute,  there  live,  dispersed 
through  dim  forest  and  barren  steppe,  by 
the  great  Volga  or  in  the  Ural  range,  men 
who,  like  Saint  Sergius,  have  fled  the  world, 
who  touch  no  flesh,  but  exist  only  on  herbs, 
roots,  and  nuts,  and  who  live  alone,  pursu- 
ing and  penetrating  ideas  and  ever  saturating 
their  souls  with  the  immense  Thought  of 
God.^  Or,  again,  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada 
there  are  Christian  communities  so  strange 
that  with  them  to  eat  meat  is  a  brigandage, 
to  drink  milk  a  theft.  A  little  calf  they 
compare  to  a  little  child.  "  What  would 
you  say,"  they  ask  naively,  "  if  some  one 
took  away  your  infant's  milk  ? "  And  in 
such  words  as  these  they  pray  at  seedtime : 
"  O  Lord,  cause  the  seed  to  grow  for  all 
creatures ;  for  animal  and  bird  ;  for  the 
beggar,  for  he  can  ask  for  it ;  for  the  robber 

^  Cf.  Vavenir  de  VEglise  Russe^  by  Joseph  Wilbois 
(Bloud.     Paris,  1907),  pp.  157,  207,  and  259. 


APOLLONIUS  TRAVELS  TO  INDIA     77 

if  he  wishes  to  steal  ;  give  to  him  also  his 
portion." 

A  like  curious  delicacy  of  feeling  is  seen 
in  the  manner  in  which  even  the  rudest 
Russian  peasant  regards  ordinary  bread,  for 
he  would  never  throw  it  to  his  dogs  for 
food,  in  that  he  holds  all  bread  to  be  sancti- 
fied, in  some  sense,  from  the  time  the  Master 
took  a  loaf  into  His  holy  hands  and 
blessed  it,  saying,  "This  is  My  body."^ 

And  if  in  this  twentieth  century  we  find 
among  many  peoples  a  sort  of  exquisite 
refinement  in  the  choice  of  physical  susten- 
ance, lest  that  subtle  associate  of  the  body, 
the  soul,  be  hampered,  even  in  a  minor 
degree,  through  the  appetites,  in  its  spiritual 
ascensions,  we  in  England,  who  understand 
so  well  the  pains  of  the  flesh  and  so  little 
the  pangs  of  the  spirit,  may  at  least  cease  to 
be  astonished  at  these  little  austerities  exer- 
cised by  races  more  psychic  and  more  ideal 
than  our  own. 

We,  with  our  strong  practical  nature,  too 
^  Vide  Vavenir  de  VEglise  Russe^  cited  above. 


78  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

often  profess  a  profound  pity,  a  pity  beyond 
words,  for  the  soul  that  is  lacerated  with 
the  sense  of  the  Ideal.  Ideals,  we  seem  to 
believe,  are  the  Tragedies  of  Man.  And  the 
man  whose  life  contains  great  Ideals  is  the 
man  whose  life  contains  great  Tragedies. 

For  four  months  Apollonius  remained 
the  guest  of  these  gentle  Indian  ascetics — 
these  little  brothers  of  St.  Francis,  if  we 
might  so  call  them. 

They  initiated  him  early  into  the  very 
arcana  of  their  mysteries  ;  and  we  may  take 
the  passage,  in  which  Philostratus  records 
the  rite,  as  a  figurative,  if  not  as  a  true 
description  of  part  of  that  sacred  ceremony. 
We  find  there  delineated  the  solemn  anoint- 
ing of  his  person  with  fragrant  chrism,  the 
Fire  of  Pardon ;  the  ritual  ablution  of  his 
members  with  lustral  waters,  the  Well  of 
Discovery ;  the  crowning  of  his  head  with 
incense-bearing  blossoms ;  and  the  final  pro- 
cession to  the  illuminated  chapel  with  the 
whole  fraternity  singing  hymns  with  all  due 
reverence,  and  forming  within  its  sacred  pre- 


APOLLONIUS  TRAVELS  TO  INDIA     79 

cincts  the  figure  of  the  ancient  Greek  chorus, 
with  the  Superior  as  coryphaeus,  the  paeans 
sounding  not  unlike  those  stately  strophes  of 
Sophocles  which  were  sung  at  Athens  in 
honour  of  -^sculapius.  During  the  period 
of  his  residence  with  the  monks  Apollonius 
occupied  himself  with  learning  all  they  taught 
him  of  their  hidden  wisdom,  testing  their 
philosophical  conclusions,  and  exercising 
himself  daily  in  their  contemplative  devo- 
tions ;  and  to  such  a  singular  degree  was  he 
impressed  by  the  extraordinary  height  of 
ecstatic  contemplation  to  which  many  of 
them  attained  that  he  was  compelled  to 
exclaim,  "  1  have  seen,  I  have  seen  the 
Brahmins  of  India  dwelling  on  the  earth 
and  yet  not  on  the  earth,  possessing  nothing 
and  yet  having  all  things." 

In  their  spiritual  experiences  he  found 
the  confirmation  of  his  own,  and  learnt 
that  at  least  with  them  "  death  was  thought 
to  be  no  evil,  but  only  inevitable  change  ;^ 

^  Cf.  In  the  Great  God^s  Hairy  translated  from  the  Hindu 
by  F.  W.  Bain  (Parker,  1904),  pp.  44-47  and  89. 


8o  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

that  no  one  is  ever  really  born  or  ever 
really  dies,  for  that  life  is  simply  a  state 
of  being  visible  and  then  being  invisible  ; 
and  that  "  true  life  consists  in  ceasing  to 
have  any  affection  even  for  life  itself  (as  his 
famous  countryman  St.  Basil  the  Great 
enunciated  some  centuries  later),  and  in 
bearing  the  judgment  of  death  in  oneself 
so  that  one  might  not  trust  in  oneself." 

Among  the  many  subjects  discussed  with 
the  sages,  Apollonius  took  especial  delight 
in  their  views  of  the  nature  of  the  soul, 
Foreknowledge  (Ilyooyj/cotrf?),  and  Self-know- 
ledge (the  TvcoOi  areavTov)  ;  and  he  learnt 
more  fully  from  their  discourses  what 
were  the  rules  and  principles  of  the 
understanding,  what  the  functions  of  the 
body,  how  many  the  faculties  of  the 
soul,  and  how  many  the  mutations  which 
devolve  hereafter  upon  the  souls  of  the 
departed  according  to  their  deserts.  On 
leaving,  with  deep  regret,  this  home  of 
wisdom,  the  seers  provided  him  with  a 
guide  and  camels  for  his  journey,  while  some 


APOLLONIUS  TRAVELS  TO  INDIA     8i 

of  the  more  intimate  of  the  brethren  court- 
eously accompanied  him  on  part  of  his  way, 
and  only  quitted  him  after  many  farewells, 
assuring  him  that  he  would  be  considered  as 
a  god  not  only  after  his  death,  but  in  his 
lifetime,  and  expressing  much  sorrow  at  his 
departure,  and  only  returning  to  their 
monastery  after  casting  many  looks  behind. 


or  THE  V\ 


VI 

HE  VISITS    ASIA   MINOR    AND    GREECE 

/^N  his  return  to  Asia  Minor  he  began  at 
once  to  reform  and  edify  the  various 
religious  confraternities  and  social  guilds, 
visiting  temples  and  oracles  and  discoursing 
with  the  priests  on  sacrifices  and  oblations, 
their  proper  matter  and  the  hours  of 
libations  ;  for  holding  in  inestimable  regard 
Life  in  all  its  multiple  manifestations,  he 
would  abolish  all  animal  sacrifice,  as  some- 
thing abhorrent  to  the  great  Demiourgos,  of 
whom  all  things  have  genesis^  and  would 
substitute  therefor  an  offering  without 
blood. 

Chief  among  the  great  cities  and  centres 

of    worship    which    he    visited    now    was 

Ephesus.     There  the  proud  goddess  Diana 

displayed    her  wealth    and   magnificence  in 

82 


HE  VISITS  ASIA  MINOR  AND  GREECE  83 

flowering  groves  and  parks  and  in  mighty 
mansions  and  splendid  workshops.  Busy- 
streets  resounded  everywhere  with  the  silver 
sound  of  little  hammers  or  with  the  deeper 
vibrations  of  smitten  bronze.  But  all  these 
marks  of  her  patronage  she  crowned  with 
her  immense  temple,  whose  glorious  pillars 
of  marble,  mellowed  by  age  and  atmosphere, 
gleamed  like  gold,  and  whose  interior, 
glistening  with  superb  reliefs  of  polished 
silver,  shone  emblematical  of  her  voluptuous 
virginity.  Here  on  the  arrival  of  Apollonius 
the  craftsmen  held  high  festival  and  left 
their  silver  metal-work,  the  commerce  of 
their  day,  to  follow  the  Teacher,  some 
admiring  him  for  the  beauty  of  his  form 
and  the  singularly  artistic  folds  of  his  robes, 
others  for  his  wisdom  and  holiness  :  all  for 
some  reason  or  other. 

As  his  eyes  looked  upon  that  fair  city 
— that  city  which  St.  Paul  had  probably  just 
visited — dwelling  amid  its  choice  trees  and 
stately  monuments,  one  of  those  strange 
moods  of  prophetic  inspiration  with  which 


84  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

at  times  he  was  moved  fell  upon  him,  and 
he  spoke  of  the  near  advent  of  that  great 
human  scourge,  the  plague,  which  shortly 
afterwards  came  upon  that  splendid  city, 
and  left  it  stricken  and  desolate,  with  streets 
deserted,  and  villas  ruined,  and  with  no 
lamps  burning  before  its  shrines. 

Jealous  of  her  sister  city,  Smyrna  sent  a 
special  embassage  to  the  sacred  man,  without 
giving  any  reason  for  the  mission  (according 
to  his  devoted  biographer  Philostratus),  but 
merely  urging  his  coming.  When  the  Sage 
inquired  of  the  ambassadors  for  what  pur- 
pose they  had  come  to  him,  they  replied, 
"  To  see  you,  O  Apollonius,  and  to  be  seen 
by  you."  No  doubt  the  real  reason  of 
the  invitation  was  to  attend  the  great 
Panionian  assembly  which  at  this  time  was 
about  to  meet  in  honour  of  Poseidon  ;  and 
here  we  may  catch  something  of  the  virility 
and  morality  of  the  man,  for  he  openly 
rebuked  the  assembled  councillors  for  their 
barbarism  in  signing  their  decrees  in  Roman, 
instead  of  in  their  own  Greek,  names,  thus 


HE  VISITS  ASIA  MINOR  AND  GREECE  85 

forgetting  the  patriotism  which  was  due  to 
their  own  country,  and  also  (and  surely  this 
was  the  real  reason)  forgetting  their  duty  to 
it  ;  for  those  who  would  avoid  paying  the 
heavy  taxes,  and  who  would  grind  the  faces 
of  their  poor  fellow-countrymen  without  let 
or  hindrance,  became  in  many  instances 
Roman  citizens  to  this  end  alone,  and  thus 
contributed  to  the  further  demoralisation  of 
the  land. 

A  similar  courage  was  displayed  by  him 
when  later  he  received  the  embassage  of  the 
chiefs  of  Olympia,  who  approached  him  with 
their  homage.  In  gentle  but  firm  words  he 
chid  them  on  their  lack  of  manly  bearing: 
for  he  saw  nothing  of  old  Sparta  in  their 
appearance.  Odours  steeped  their  hair, 
and  their  faces  were  beardless  and  white  ; 
their  garments  were  soft  and  effeminate, 
and  all  their  limbs  were  smooth  and 
glistening.  They  looked  as  if  they  had 
breathed  the  air  of  Sybaris  all  their  lives. 
His  words  had  the  happy  effect  of  reviving 
their  ancient  spirit,  that  of  the  old  Palaestra, 


86  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

and  not  long  afterwards  they  announced  to 
him  the  reformation  of  their  mode  of  life. 

But  the  festival  of  the  great  and  tre- 
mendous mysteries,  the  Eleusinian  Mys- 
teries, was  approaching  ;  and  the  desire  of 
Apollonius  went  forth  to  that  devotional 
rite.  Making  his  way  to  Athens,  he  sought 
initiation  into  these  the  most  glorious  and 
spiritual  of  ancient  Greek  ceremonies.  In 
many  places  throughout  Greece  the  Eleusinia 
were  celebrated,  but  only  at  Eleusis  did  they 
possess  a  supreme  significance,  a  profound 
mystical  instinct,  a  spiritual  anticipation  of 
a  future  and  eternal  life. 

For  nine  days  he  made  the  appointed 
ways  and  all  the  sacred  "  stations  "  of  the 
via  dolorosa  from  Athens  to  Eleusis,  visiting 
the  Great  Sea,  joining  in  the  torch-bearing 
processions,  making  pilgrimages  to  the  Holy 
Well,  the  Threshing-floor,  and  the  Stone 
of  Sorrow,  whereon  Demeter,  the  mother  of 
divine  sorrow,  sat  weeping  for  our  poor 
humanity  and  mystically  yearning  to  bestow 
immortality  upon  our  frail  mortality. 


iri 


HE  VISITS  ASIA  MINOR  AND  GREECE  87 

He  was  much  disturbed  in  spirit  at  the 
manner  in  which  he  saw  the  Athenians 
celebrating  certain  introductory  parts  of  this 
august  rite  ;  for  on  entering  the  theatre 
to  hear  "  the  monodies  and  the  melodies 
and  the  songs  of  the  chorus  and  the  notes 
which  they  sing  in  both  tragedy  and 
comedy,"  he  found  to  his  disappointment 
that  the  performance  was  mostly  composed 
of  "  dancing,  and  of  dancing  to  the  effemi- 
nate flute."  The  stately  lyre,  used  in  the 
festivals  of  the  Gods,  was  absent ;  and  the 
divine  epics  of  Orpheus  were  debased  by 
voluptuous  and  shameful  representations. 
No  doubt  the  performance  was  provided  for 
"the  people,"  but  the  good  man  could  not 
refrain  himself  from  rebuking  the  whole 
gathering  openly.  Whether  it  was  due  to 
his  forcibly  expressed  censure  or  not,  it  is 
hard  to  say,  but  the  hierophant  of  the  Mys- 
teries now  refused  him  initiation.  Never- 
theless on  the  tenth  morning,  when,  as  the 
myth  goes,  Hecate  meets  Demeter  bearing 
a  light  in  her  hands  looking  for  her  child 


88  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

and  uttering  wild  cries  to  Zeus  for  its  return, 
all  the  devout,  and  we  may  assume  Apol- 
lonius  to  have  been  of  their  number,  entered 
the  splendid  temple  of  Demeter,  traversing  its 
immense  white  marble  pavement  and  passing 
through  its  great  propylaea  and  corridors,  un- 
til they  stood  within  the  sacred  shrine  itself. 
Let  us  picture  the  scene,  for  it  is  a 
wonderful  and  uplifting  sight.  In  the  outer 
precincts  stands  the  great  expectant  crowd, 
both  Mystae  or  purified  ones  and  Epoptae 
or  initiated.  The  Night  has  come.  In  the 
glimmer  of  torch  and  ceremonial  lights,  made 
dimmer  by  the  all-pervading  incense-smoke, 
the  faces  that  are  worn  with  prayer  and  fast- 
ing take  to  themselves  something  of  strange 
and  unearthly  beauty.  It  is  dark  and  it  is 
silent.  For  Darkness  shuts  out  the  world 
and  Silence  shuts  in  the  soul ;  and  in  the  Dark- 
ness is  the  Light  of  Heaven  and  in  the  Silence 
is  the  Voice  of  God  ;  and  so  the  soul  can  fully 
utter  itself,  feeling  instinctively  that  here 
vibrates,  as  through  the  countless  centuries, 
all  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  aspiring  souls. 


HE  VISITS  ASIA  MINOR  AND  GREECE  89 

Yes,  there  is  Night :  but  all  anticipate  the 
Dawn.  There  is  Silence  ;  but  all  await  the 
Voice.  And  in  the  heart  of  all  is  the  old 
story  of  Demeter,  the  great  Earth-Mother, 
the  Goddess  of  the  corn  that  is  sown  in 
darkness  and  that  rises  in  the  white  light 
of  Spring.  Death  and  Life  are  near.  They 
meet.  Fear  and  Hope,  Night  and  Day, 
touch.  They  mingle.  It  is  a  solemn  hour  ; 
for  it  is,  as  it  were,  the  standing  on  the 
brink  of  Death,  with  the  faith  that  Heaven 
is  there  also. 

But  soon  the  doors  of  the  great  Cella^ 
the  inmost  sanctuary,  the  holy  of  holies, 
are  opened  for  those  who  are  prepared. 
The  Prayer  beforehand  was  only  Approach 
to  the  Divine  :  but  Communion  now  will  be 
Contact.  That  Prayer  was  but  the  Desire 
for  the  Day  ;  the  passionate  Longing  for 
the  Face  of  God.  But  Communion  will  be 
Vision.  It  will  be  sunlight  breaking  upon 
a  thousand  hills.  So,  one  by  one,  they  pass 
in.  They  are  known  by  their  names,  for 
the  names  of  those  that  have  "  won  their 


po  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

freedom  '*  are  inscribed  in  a  scroll.  Still 
there  is  Silence  like  the  silence  of  the  grave. 
It  is  the  introitus^  the  entrance  into  the 
Great  Mystery,  the  Mystery  of  Death.  On 
the  lips  of  each  is  laid  a  golden  key  that 
they  may  be  sealed  for  ever,  and  may  for 
ever  guard  unuttered  what  is  about  to  be 
committed  to  them  then.  We  may  not 
know  all  the  rest.  Yet  we  may  perhaps 
believe  that  a  white  basket,  decked  with 
poppies  and  pomegranates — emblems  of 
Death  bearing  within  itself  the  countless 
seeds  of  Life — is  brought  around,  contain- 
ing other  symbols  of  Life  arising  from 
Death,  for  the  worshippers  to  touch,  and 
they  touch.  Then  is  offered  to  each  a  cup 
of  corn-wine  to  drink,  and  each  drinks, 
and  a  marvellous  refreshment  follows  the 
draught,  for  it  is  a  sort  of  divine  com- 
munion, an  imparting  to  the  participant  of 
a  new  and  eternal  life  ;  and  the  wondrous 
words  "  Thou  art  become  God  from  man  " 
are  communicated  to  each  enlightened  soul. 
Then  they  pass  out  joyfully  into  the  golden 


HE  VISITS  ASIA  MINOR  AND  GREECE  91 

light  of  the  irradiant  day,  and,  as  though 
some  cunningly  devised  door  were  suddenly 
withdrawn,  all  the  fresh  glory  of  a  new 
world  is  laid  before  their  illuminated  eyes 
—  fair  fields  and  multicoloured  meadows, 
bright  with  starlike  flowers,  all  delicately 
awake  and  trembling  in  the  calm,  sweet 
sunlight  of  a  new  day.  They  are  The  Blessed 
Fields^  the  Fields  of  Rest  and  Joy,  for  those 
that  are  worthy.  Concurrently,  heavenly 
voices  rise  in  hymns  of  gladness,  holy  to 
hear  ;  and  in  strophe  and  antistrophe  the 
grand  old  Homeric  hymn  breaks  forth  in 
a  kind  of  glorious  antiphonal  thunder. 
Through  it  comes  the  sound  of  moving  feet, 
the  mystic  dance,  and  the  impressive  drama  of 
Demeter  and  Kore  is  offered  to  all.  The  tense 
Silence  and  awful  Darkness  are  no  more. 
Here  is  movement,  action,  life  ;  and  at  the 
close  the  whole  company  bursts  forth  into 
songs  of  rejoicings  and  relief,  and  hymn  on 
hymn  arises,  until  it  would  almost  seem  as 
if  already  the  frail  forms  of  humanity  there 
present  had  really  been  lifted  up,  and  had 


92  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

entered,  by  intensity  of  anticipation,  into 
the  New  Life,  the  Life  which  is  eternal, 
holy,  and  divine. 

While  at  Athens  Apollonius  corrected  the 
gross  abuse  of  gladiatorial  displays ;  for 
brigands  and  cutpurses  and  housebreakers 
and  all  manner  of  murderous  men  were 
openly  bought  at  high  prices  in  the  market, 
and  were  then  armed  and  forced  to  fight  in 
the  arena,  to  please  the  public  passion  for 
blood-letting.  Thus,  here  and  there,  through 
Asia  Minor,  Greece,  and  the  isles  of  the 
Archipelago,  the  Sage  travelled,  at  times 
performing  (as  some  would  believe)  strange 
and  miraculous  acts,  such  as  evoking  the 
spirit  of  Achilles  at  Troy,  discerning  daemoni- 
acal  possession,  revealing  a  Lamia  and  fore- 
telling earthquake  and  troubles,  but  (be  that 
as  it  may)  at  least  teaching  men  better 
things  and  uplifting  the  general  level  of 
religious  and  social  life,  praising  order  and 
decency  where  conspicuous,  and  censuring 
all  that  would  call  for  rebuke. 


VII 

HE  VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT 

lY/TEANTIME  it  appeared  to  Apollonlus 
that  the  Imperial  City  of  Rome  was 
in  need  of  his  chastening  zeal.  Strange 
spectacles  were  being  witnessed  there  daily. 
The  Emperor  Nero  was  to  be  seen  frequently 
driving  chariots  furiously  through  the  streets, 
singing  on  public  stages,  and  even  fighting 
in  gladiatorial  combats.  It  seemed  in  the  eyes 
of  Apollonius  as  if  the  whole  city  would  be 
demoralised  by  such  an  evil  example  in  high 
places  unless  corrected.  He  decided  to  visit 
the  town  with  his  reforming  and  beneficent 
measures.  Frequenting  the  temples,  as  was 
his  custom,  he  quickened  at  once  the  public 
spirit  of  devotion.  To  whatsoever  shrine 
he  repaired,  there  also  the  people  flocked  ; 
for  so  influential  was  he  with  the  Gods, 
93 


94  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

in  their  opinion,  that  they  expected  greater 
favours  in  those  temples  where  he  was  than 
in  any  others  ;  and,  in  consequence,  sweet- 
smelling  sacrifices  and  numberless  oblations 
were  offered  with  an  unknown  fervour  to 
the  Immortals.  To  the  inhabitants  he  was 
swiftly  and  favourably  known  by  reason  of 
a  signal  manifestation  of  his  healing  powers, 
for  he  had  thrilled  the  city  with  a  remark- 
able proof  of  his  peculiar  persuasion  with 
the  Gods.  One  evening,  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  mighty  city,  his  eyes  caught  the  sight  of 
a  large  funeral  pyre  which  was  being  pre- 
pared. Around  it  a  vast  multitude  was 
gathering  in  soiled  garments  and  great  grief. 
He  approached  the  place  and,  as  is  the 
nature  of  the  human  mind,  begged  to  learn 
for  whom  it  was.  With  much  lamentation 
he  was  informed  that  it  was  for  a  young  girl 
who,  on  the  eve  of  her  wedding  day,  had 
died,  and  that  her  obsequies  would  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  flower  of  Rome's  nobility,  for 
her  family  was  of  consular  rank.  Soon  a 
long  and  melancholy  procession  drew  nigh. 


HE  VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT     95 

all  damp  with  rain,  while  the  cries  of  the 
mourners  filling  the  air  intensified  the  sorrow 
of  the  scene.  Meeting  the  sad  convoy,  the 
blessed  man  bid  the  attendants  to  set  down 
the  bier,  and  he  inquired  her  name.  The 
procession  halted,  and  all  the  wailing  grew 
hushed,  for  it  was  thought  the  holy  man 
was  about  to  pronounce,  as  was  sometimes 
customary,  a  funeral  address.  But  he,  look- 
ing upon  the  maiden,  touched  her  hand, 
and,  his  pity  revealing  itself  in  his  gentle 
eyes,  he  called  her  in  a  soft  and  compassion- 
ate voice,  and  wakened  the  girl  from  her 
seeming  death.  Straightway  she  sat  up  and 
began  to  speak,  and,  like  Alcestis  when 
recalled  to  life  by  Hercules,  was  able  to 
return  to  her  father *s  house.  Thus  it  was 
that  he  wooed  back  to  life  the  soul  which, 
to  all  appearances,  seemed  extinct  and  took 
away  death  from  her  who  was  to  be  the 
banquet  of  the  tomb,  even  as  she  lay  gar- 
landed upon  the  bier,  perfumed  and  anointed 
with  odorous  unguents. 

It  may  be  that  the  reforming  zeal  of  Apol- 


96  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

lonius  found  vent  in  rash  acts  and  utter- 
ances or  in  censuring  the  Caesar's  mode  of 
life  too  severely,  for  it  is  said  that  on  one 
occasion  he  rebuked  the  buffoonery  of  the 
Emperor  when  he  stated  that  "even  the 
Gods  were  to  be  forgiven  if  they  took  pleas- 
ure in  fools "  ;  but,  at  all  events,  the 
Emperor,  notwithstanding  his  democratic 
pleasures  and  associations,  made  a  decree  in 
the  year  6§  a.d.  banishing  every  philo- 
sopher from  Rome  ;  and  Apollonius  with 
all  the  race  of  these  republican  thinkers  was 
compelled  to  quit  the  Imperial  City. 

On  leaving  Italy,  Apollonius  went  west  as 
far  as  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  stayed  at 
Sicily,  and  then  revisited  Greece,  pursuing 
his  object  of  elevating  the  spiritual  tone  of 
society.  At  Athens,  the  repentant  hiero- 
phant  who  had  previously  refused  him 
initiation  now  received  him  gladly  into  the 
Eleusinian  Brotherhood  ;  but  there  were 
still  habits  and  customs  to  be  reformed,  for 
we  find  him  denouncing  those  who  "  hawked 
about  little   images  of  Dionysus    and    De- 


HE   VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT     97 

meter  "  for  sale,  describing  their  trade  as  a 
"  species  of  horrid  gain  "  and  as  a  profana- 
tion "  feeding  upon  the  Gods." 

About  this  time  (66-67  a.d.)  the  Emperor 
Nero  was  in  Greece  celebrating  the  Olym- 
pian Games,  and  was  also  continuing  there 
his  musical  and  literary  extravaganzas.  This 
superb  Festival  originally  lasted  five  days. 
The  symbol  of  the  Unity  of  Greece,  it 
renewed  the  thought  and  expressed  the  fact 
that,  beneath  all  superficial  separation,  the 
great  Nation  of  wide-scattered  Greeks  was 
one  in  blood  and  speech  and  art.  Here  at 
Olympia,  where  no  woman  was  permitted 
to  attend,  the  Treaties  of  the  various  States 
were  proclaimed  ;  their  Crowns  of  Friend- 
ship conferred  upon  each  other  ;  and  their 
glorious  heroes  and  statesmen  publicly 
honoured  ;  so  that  the  whok  of  Olympia 
rang  during  the  Feast  with  the  choice  and 
cultured  hymns  of  Greek  poets  and  the 
majestic  periods  of  Greek  orators.  To  his 
accomplishments  of  artist  and  athlete  Nero 
added,  while  there,  that  of  engineer ;  and  he 


98  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

attempted,  but  failed,  to  cut  the  Isthmus  of 
Corinth.  The  close  proximity  of  the  august 
Presence  was  not  altogether  desirable,  and 
perhaps  not  even  without  danger,  to  Apol- 
lonius,  to  whom  "  his  digging  was  as 
unfinished  as  his  singing,"  and  it  behoved 
the  Sage  to  seek  "  pastures  new." 

One  country  besides  India  had  always 
claimed  his  admiration  and  affection — a 
country  associated  not  only  by  bonds  of 
religion  and  commerce  with  that  great  land 
beneath  the  first  risings  of  the  stars,  but  also 
with  his  beloved  Hellas  ;  a  country  whose 
capital,  Alexandria,  was  then  the  home  of 
learning  and  philosophy,  the  university  city 
of  the  great  realm,  the  centre  of  the  highest 
culture  in  the  Roman  and  Greek  worlds,  and 
whose  far  inner  reaches  and  deserts  were 
homes  of  the  purest  monastic  and  ascetic 
excellences.  This  splendid  country  was  at 
least  free  to  him,  and  on  arriving  there  he 
was  received  with  the  greatest  honour.  The 
people  loved  him,  it  is  said,  before  they  saw 
him,  looking  upon  him  as  more  than  human, 


HE  VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT     99 

and  making  way  for  him  in  their  streets  as 
for  one  that  carries  sacred  things. 

Here  as  elsewhere  he  lost  no  opportunity 
in  endeavouring  to  abolish  blood  sacrifices — 
geese  and  bulls  being  the  principal  oflFerings 
in  Egypt — but,  as  often  is  the  way  with 
well-intentioned  reformers,  he  came  into 
conflict  with  the  authorities.  The  High- 
priest  of  Serapis,  the  Patriarch  of  Alexan- 
dria, marvelled  at  his  temerity  in  refusing 
to  sacrifice  life,  and  exclaimed,  "Who  is 
wise  enough  to  reform  the  established  wor- 
ship of  the  Egyptians  ? " 

Here  also  the  abuse  of  the  sport  of 
horse  -  racing,  with  its  incidental  blood- 
spilling,  brought  down  the  displeasure  of 
the  Philosopher.  '*  Troy,"  he  reminded 
them  somewhat  sternly,  "fell  through  one 
horse." 

While  carrying  on  his  proposed  work 
among  the  priests  and  temples,  the  future 
Emperor  Vespasian  landed  at  Alexandria. 
"  Where  is  the  Tyanean  ? "  was  his  first  in- 
quiry of  the  sacred  priests,  civil  magistrates. 


loo  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

and  deputies  who  formed  the  vast  and  pom- 
pous procession  arranged  to  greet  his  arrival. 
"You  will  find  him  in  the  temple," 
answered  Damis  the  faithful  disciple. 
"Then  let  us  repair  thither,"  replied  the 
Prince,  "that  1  may  first  offer  prayers  to 
the  Gods  and  then  converse  with  this  ex- 
cellent man."  On  arriving  he  exclaimed, 
"  Make  me  Emperor."  "  It  is  already 
done,"  answered  the  discreet  Apollonius, 
"for  I  have  so  asked  it  of  the  Gods,  and 
they  have  bestowed  upon  us  a  most  wise, 
generous,  and  beneficent  Prince." 

But  in  the  far-off  tracts  of  Upper  Egypt 
were  the  great  ascetics  of  the  West  and 
South  :  those  who  had  renounced  the  world, 
and  had  retired  into  mountains  and  deserts, 
where  they  fasted  and  meditated  in  silence 
and  solitude  —  the  naked  ones,  Gymno- 
sophists,  as  they  were  called,  in  common 
with  all  who  had,  so  to  say,  taken  the  vow 
of  poverty ;  for  even  Apollonius  con- 
sidered himself  as  a  Gymnosophist.  "At 
the  age  of  fourteen,"  he  said,  "  1  resigned 


HE  VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT   loi 

my  patrimony  to  those  that  desired  such 
things,  and  naked  I  sought  the  naked." 

With  a  small  company  of  ten  souls,  he 
set  out  for  Ethiopia  and  the  Upper  Nile,  at 
first  by  camel  and  afterwards  by  barge.  As 
slowly  his  dahabeah  ascended  the  River  of 
Egypt,  moving  like  a  sacred  galley  convey- 
ing pilgrims  to  a  shrine,  the  occasional 
traveller  or  merchant  would  stay  his  cameFs 
course  and  gaze  at  the  sight,  perceiving  that 
the  boat  was  full  of  sages,  "  conjecturing  it 
so  by  the  singularity  of  their  garb,  and  by 
the  books  that  they  held  in  their  hands." 

After  many  days*  journey  they  came  near 
the  places  where  the  naked  ones,  yvfxvoiy 
lived.  Here,  through  desert  waste  and 
mountainous  tract,  in  countless  caves  and 
cells,  in  solitary  shrines  and  holes,  thou- 
sands of  souls,  eager  and  passionate  for  The 
Blessed  Fields^  lived  alone  in  the  awful  silence 
of  endless  outstretching  sands  and  rocks, 
moved  to  the  hatred  of  the  world  and  the 
love  of  solitude  by  the  same  spiritual  im- 
pulse  and   the    same   strange    longings  for 


I02  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

the  Divine  Life  which  have  stirred  the  great 
religious  movements  of  China,  India,  and 
Western  Asia,  and  which  have  initiated  and 
fertilised  the  richer  mysticism  of  Christian 
thought  and  worship. 

In  the  brooding  and  almost  eternal 
silence,  which,  in  some  sense,  seems  part  of 
the  very  atmosphere  of  the  Strong  God, 
those  ancient  Egyptians  must  have  antici- 
pated, in  some  degree,  the  rapturous 
moments  vouchsafed  to  their  more  blessed 
successors,  some  centuries  later,  at  Oxyr- 
rhynchus,  Tabenna,  AntinoS,  and  in  the 
Nitrian  desert.  Through  day  and  night, 
through  heat  and  cold,  we  know  how  these 
later  coenobites  would  stand,  all  tense  in 
prayer,  waiting  patiently  the  exquisite  hour. 
Would  thoughts  of  desertion  or  despair  or 
a  sense  of  weariness  or  accidie  arise,  the 
love  and  expectation  of  the  Consolatory 
Presence  would  still  surmount  all.  Over 
the  arid  soul  the  gentle  dew  would  surely 
sometime  fall,  if  only  they  were  faithful ! 
After  the  Night  of  Watching  the  gentle  and 


HE  VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT   103 

lovely  Dawn  would  surely  come  ;  and  then 
the  White  Hands  of  God  would  extend  and 
bless  ;  His  Breath  would  come  like  sweet 
odours,  and  His  Words  like  rich  oil.  His 
Mien  would  be  gracious  ;  His  Smile  would 
be  life  itself ;  and  in  His  Great  Eyes  would 
be  all  their  prayers — the  prayers  they  had 
forgotten  ;  the  prayers  they  had  thought 
unheard.  Thus  these  blessed  saints,  even 
those  quite  outworn  in  body,  would  commit 
themselves  to  "  the  Wise  Physician  Who 
holds  in  His  Hands  the  pulses  of  our  weak- 
ness," and  in  Him  find  a  more  than 
abundant  compensation  for  all  the  pleasures 
of  Alexandria,  Rome,  or  Athens.  But  great 
as  the  renunciation  of  our  holy  Fathers  was, 
it  seems  just  to  say  that  the  renunciation  of 
these  countless  Gymnosophists  was  even 
greater  ;  for  they,  in  their  venture  of  faith, 
surrendered  love  and  wealth  and  all  that 
makes  life  desirable,  for  benefits  less  posi- 
tive and  blessings  less  manifest. 

In    this    Place    of    Meditation    no    trees 
could   be  seen,  save  some  groups  of   tall 


to4         APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

palms  which  served  as  a  meeting-place  for 
the  numberless  recluses,  whose  cells  dotted 
the  hills  and  wide  plains  for  miles  around. 

It  was  natural  that  these  silent  anchorites 
would  look  askance  at  any  stranger  arriving 
in  their  midst  of  whom  they  knew  nothing. 
And  for  some  time  they  refrained  from 
communicating  in  any  way  with  Apollonius 
or  his  company  of  disciples.  But  when 
many  days  had  passed,  and,  morning  and 
evening,  they  had  observed  him  paying  his 
adorations  to  the  Sun,  as  was  his  custom, 
and  saw  that  he  also  was  filled  with  some- 
thing of  their  own  spirit,  Thesperion,  the 
chief  of  the  community,  sent  a  messenger 
to  the  blessed  man  with  an  invitation  to 
discourse  with  him. 

At  their  first  meeting,  Thesperion,  still 
doubtless  not  free  from  suspicion,  spoke 
first,  and  apparently  in  a  manner  which  con- 
tributed no  large  measure  of  honour  to  his 
guest.  The  faithful  disciple  Damis  was 
greatly  overcome  and  much  cast  down  at 
the  Superior's  speech  ;  but  he  recovered,  it 


HE   VISITS   ROME   AND   EGYPT    105 

is  recorded,  new  life  as  Apollonius  replied, 
and  he  felt  quite  restored  when  he  heard 
all  that  his  master  said. 

At  a  subsequent  discussion  Apollonius 
expressed  his  disapproval  of  the  Egyptian 
practice  of  representing  their  Gods  as  hawks, 
owls,  wolves,  dogs,  and  the  like.  "  Beasts," 
he  stated,  "  may  derive  dignity  from  such 
representations,  but  the  Gods  lose  theirs  "  ; 
and  he  also  expressed  the  noble  thought  and 
sentence  that  "  the  man  who  desires  to 
form  in  his  mind  the  image  of  Zeus  should 
behold  him  with  the  same  enraptured  fancy 
as  Phidias  did — throned  on  the  Heavens 
and  compassed  by  the  Hours  and  the  Stars." 
After  the  Tyanean's  powerful  speech  we  read 
that  "  Thesperion  was  like  unto  one  who 
wished  to  change  the  conversation."  Whether 
it  Was  due  to  these  little  suspicions  and  con- 
troversies or  not,  it  is  difficult  to  say,  but 
Apollonius  concludes  that  the  Sages  of  India 
were  superior  to  the  Gymnosophists  of 
Egypt  both  in  moral  and  spiritual  excellence. 

As  he  was  so  far   up   the   River   Nile, 


io6         APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

Apollonius  conceived  the  desire  of  endeav- 
ouring to  track  it  to  its  source  ;  and  he 
visited  the  Cataracts,  which,  he  states,  burst 
with  such  intense  violence  over  the  great 
rocks  which  formed  the  falls  that  his  little 
party  could  not  contemplate  the  sight  with- 
out great  pain  to  their  hearing  :  their  heads 
grew  dizzy  with  the  deafening  thunder  of  the 
waters,  until,  stunned,  they  seemed  as  though 
they  were  delirious  and  heard  the  drums  of 
all  the  desert  sounding  in  their  ears. 

Failing  in  the  attempt  to  find  the  risings 
of  the  great  river,  the  explorers  returned  to 
Alexandria  in  time  to  learn  of  the  capture 
and  utter  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus 
in  70  A.D.,  and  Apollonius  marked  the 
event  by  a  letter  of  congratulation  to  the 
Roman  general  complimenting  him  upon  his 
moderation  ! 


VIII 

HIS  FURTHER  TRAVELS  AND  RETURN 
TO   ROME   FOR  TRIAL 

T70R  some  score  of  years  after  this  event 
Apollonius  travelled  and  taught  in  Phoe- 
nicia, Ionia,  and  Greece,  but  his  biographer 
leaves  something  of  a  lacuna  in  this  part  of 
the  Life;  but  it  would  seem  that  he  had 
considerable  intercourse  with  Titus  and  also 
with  Vespasian  and  Nerva  prior  to  their 
elevation  to  the  purple.  His  friendship  with 
the  last-named  and  his  unceasing  zeal  for 
reform  gave  opportunity  to  those  who  dis- 
liked his  proposed  changes  to  injure  him  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Emperor  Domitian.  So 
numerous  and  so  insistent  did  accusations  and 
informations  lie  against  him,  that  at  length, 
to  clear  himself,  he  determined  to  go  to 
Rome  and  meet  his  accusers  face  to  face. 
107 


io8  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

The  charges  against  this  restless  spirit 
were  of  different  kinds  and  not  few  in 
number.  They  included  his  style  of  dress 
and  mode  of  living ;  his  knowledge  of 
futurity  and  the  adoration  offered  to  him  ; 
the  homage  which  he  paid  to  Nerva  ;  for 
statements  which  were  believed  to  have  been 
uttered  against  the  Emperor  Domitian,  and 
for  conspiring  to  obtain  the  Empire.  The 
real  charge  lay  in  the  homage  which  it  was 
alleged  he  paid  to  Nerva  as  a  candidate  for 
the  purple. 

Meanwhile  he  was  arrested,  cast  into  a 
common  gaol,  and  kept  under  strict  guard. 
Yet  he  maintained  that  dignity  and  fortitude 
which  was  essentially  his  own,  and  at  times 
he  harangued  his  fellow-prisoners  with  words 
of  encouragement,  and  found  no  little  com- 
fort both  for  himself  and  for  them  in  such 
thoughts  as  these  :  "  Whilst  we  live  we  are 
all  prisoners,  for  the  soul  is  bound  to  the 
body  and  suffers  much.  The  men  who  first 
built  houses  built  for  themselves  but  a 
second  prison.     Cities  also  are  but  common 


HIS  RETURN  TO  ROME  FOR  TRIAL  109 

prisons  ;  and  the  Earth  itself  is  bound  by 
the  Ocean  as  by  a  chain."  Then  apostro- 
phising the  poets  he  exclaimed,  "  Draw 
nigh,  ye  poets,  and  sing  to  these  afflicted 
creatures,  recounting  how  even  Saturn  of 
old  was  fettered  by  Vulcan  in  Heaven  itself"  ; 
and  with  such -like  words  he  evoked  the 
stoical  spirit  in  the  most  degraded  natures. 
After  some  time  he  was  led  forth  to  an 
audience  of  the  Emperor.  Four  guards 
attended  him,  but  they  preserved  a  greater 
distance  from  his  person  than  was  their 
custom  when  guarding  common  prisoners. 
The  Augustus,  crowned  \yith  a  garland  of 
green  boughs,  received  him  in  the  Hall  of 
Adonis,  which  was  at  the  time  decorated  in 
honour  of  the  feast  of  Adonis  with  shells 
and  flowers  similar  to  what  were  borne  by 
the  Assyrians  in  their  sacred  festivals.  After 
discussing  the  charges  privately  with  him, 
Domitian,  more  suspicious  than  ever,  com- 
manded that  he  should  be  shorn  and  placed 
in  a  more  loathsome  prison  than  the  former 
one,   loaded    with    heavy   chains,   and    set 


no  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

amongst  the  vilest  felons.  The  unhappy 
Damis  now  lost  all  heart  and  weeping 
exclaimed  bitterly,  "  O  Master,  what  will 
become  of  us  ?  Who  will  defend  you 
now  ? "  "  Time,"  answered  the  dauntless 
Tyanean,  "  and  the  spirit  of  the  Gods  and 
the  love  of  Philosophy."  This  bold  hope 
proved  true  ;  and  at  the  trial  which  followed, 
Apollonius,  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  Zeus, 
spoke  so  ably  that  "  a  shout  of  applause  arose 
louder  than  what  was  suitable  to  the  dignity 
and  gravity  of  an  Imperial  tribunal,"  and 
he  was  acquitted  by  the  Emperor  himself. 

Some  time  after  thus  in  a  real  sense 
"  winning  his  freedom  "  the  philosopher  re- 
turned to  Greece,  and  was  received  every- 
where with  enthusiasm  and  respect ;  and 
this — the  final  period  of  his  long  life — may 
be  termed  the  period  of  his  triumph. 
Olympia  itself  was  stirred  at  his  presence, 
and  the  people  flocked  to  see  him  with  more 
eagerness  than  to  witness  the  Olympic 
Games.  Crowds  of  disciples  attached  them- 
selves to  his  person,  and  the  flower  of  the 


HIS  RETURN  TO  ROME  FOR  TRIAL  in 

land  followed  him,  content  to  learn  of  his 
wisdom.  The  name  Apollonian  was  given 
to  these  followers  ;  and  near  the  Springs 
of  Hercyne,  in  the  cave  of  Trophonius  in 
Boeotia,  he  wrote  down  for  their  use  the 
precepts  of  his  great  predecessor  Pytha- 
goras ;  and  the  book  was  afterwards  pre- 
served by  the  Emperor  Hadrian  in  his 
palace  at  Antium.  For  two  years  he  teaches 
Greece,  and  then  visits  Ionia,  Smyrna,  and 
Ephesus  for  the  last  time.  At  Ephesus  he 
was  moved  by  that  strange  telepathic  sym- 
pathy which  influenced  him  at  times  so 
curiously,  and  he  announced  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  Ephesians  the  assassination  of 
Domitian  at  the  very  time  of  the  tragedy. 

The  new  Emperor,  Nerva,  sent  for  the 
aged  philosopher,  now  heavy  with  his  hun- 
dred years,  and  invited  him  to  come  to 
Rome  and  act  as  his  counsellor ;  but  a 
summons  more  august  than  that  of  the  great 
Caesar  of  the  Roman  Empire  came  to  him. 
It  was  the  summons  of  Death — the  call  to 
"the  supreme  Initiation  into  the  Great  Mys- 


112  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

teries,"  as  Plutarch  calls  it  in  his  fragment 
On  the  Soul ;  and  in  his  own  characteristic 
way  he  met  the  dread  command.  Sending 
away  his  faithful  Damis  on  a  mission,  real 
or  fictitious,  to  the  new  Emperor,  Nerva,  he 
died  alone  and  followed  out  his  own  maxim 
— for  his  tomb,  it  is  said,  could  nowhere  be 
found — "  Conceal  your  life,  and  if  you 
cannot  do  that  conceal  your  death." 


IX 

CONCLUSION 

T71EWING  the  philosophy  or  "  religion  " 
of  this  wonderful  man,  we  see  that  it 
was  of  a  piece  with  all  speculative  systems 
of  thought.  The  mystery  of  Death  was  the 
basis  of  it ;  and  the  mystery  of  Death  is  the 
background  of  all  philosophy.  The  philo- 
sopher deludes  himself  when  he  says  he  is 
explaining  Life.  He  is  not.  He  is  really 
endeavouring  to  understand  Death.  He  is 
trying  to  interpret  the  dark  shadow  that 
surely  falls  at  even,  or  the  chilly  wind  that 
suddenly  unsummers  June,  or  the  hidden 
hand  that  silently  extinguishes  a  star  ;  that 
terrible  finger  which,  without  distinction, 
infects  all  things,  beautiful  or  base,  with  its 
leprous  touch — for  the  evil  thing  must  also 
die.     It  is  this  eternal  disintegrating  force, 

H  113 


114         APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

this  perpetual  separating  power,  interpene- 
trating all  life,  inhabiting  all  thought  and 
form,  which  has  unbalanced  heathen  philo- 
sophy and  left  out  the  part  that  Love  should 
support. 

And  the  philosophy  of  Apollonius  stood 
as  no  exception  to  the  rule.  His  was  not  a 
philosophy  for  women.  It  was  never  meant 
for  that.  It  was  only  a  philosophy  for 
men.  It  compassed  none  of  those  more 
tender  notes,  those  sad  wordless  songs  or 
untold  compassions  which,  like  inexpressible 
pities,  find  refuge  only  in  a  woman's  heart. 
And  he  himself  deliberately  refrained  from 
entering  that  Sanctuary  :  yea,  into  her  dark- 
ness or  her  silence  he  did  not  even  stoop. 
He  could  sow  no  seeds  of  love  in  her  soul. 
He  could  present  to  her  no  Mater  Miseri- 
cordi^y  no  Lady  of  Sorrows,  no  Sister  of 
surpassing  tenderness  to  whom  her  sad  and 
trembling  voice  could  rise,  as  from  some 
sacred  grove,  and  tell  of  her  grief  for 
children  or  her  loss  of  love.  And  so  al- 
though   he    was    gifted    with    the    strange 


CONCLUSION  115 

faculty  of  discerning  men's  minds,  he  yet 
lacked  that  more  attractive  sympathy,  that 
singular  gift  of  unlocking  the  troubled 
hearts  of  women,  which  was  so  evident  in 
the  being  of  St.  Philip  Neri  or  in  that  of 
the  Blessed  John  Vianney,  whose  peculiar 
tendernesses  drew  all  France  to  his  confes- 
sional for  the  exceeding  sweetness  of  his 
soul. 

Thus  he  never  really  fathomed,  in  all  its 
mysterious  depths  and  endless  recesses,  the 
great  well-spring  of  human  affection.  He 
valued  not  that  which,  with  us,  is  longed  for 
by  so  many  and  realised  by  so  few.  Only 
the  great  contending  male,  solitary  in  his 
aspirations,  intense  and  awful  in  his  quest 
for  God,  was  by  him  accounted  worthy  to 
tell  to  Heaven  the  weightier  sorrows  of  his 
heart.  Nature  and  the  Gods  were  nearer  to 
him  than  woman  ;  for  they  knew  the  secret 
which  she  did  not  know  and  which  he  alone 
longed  to  know.  He  had  need  of  them. 
They  partook  of  something  over  and  beyond 
Death,  something  which  he  desired  above  all 


Ii6  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

things — Life.  Whereas  she  was  but  of  to- 
day and  for  to-day.  Thus,  like  all  Greeks, 
he  refused  to  value  Love,  and  laid  no  serious 
worth  upon  what  men  now  prize  as  the 
greatest  of  all  virtues.  He  valued  Life  and 
Life  only. 

Yet  perhaps  there  is  a  deeper  reason,  a 
more  elemental  cause,  why  Love  finds  no 
part  in  Greek  philosophy  ;  and  which  we 
ourselves  may  find  in  the  Hour  of  Darkness 
and  in  the  Night  of  Fear.  For  in  the 
instance  of  a  great  bereavement  we  might 
well  conceive  of  one  thinking,  in  the  mid- 
night of  his  sorrow,  as  he  would  recall 
the  delectable  perfections  of  some  departed 
friend,  that  there  is  nothing  beautiful  enough 
to  live.  And  truly  thinking  thus,  from 
that  hour  he  could  not  help  but  cease  to 
love,  repeating  again  and  again,  "  Surely 
there  is  nothing  beautiful  enough  to  live, 
since  the  great  Lord  of  Life  and  Love  has 
slain  my  exceedingly  beloved  friend,  as 
though  He  deemed  him  unworthy  of  the 
gift  of  life  "  ;  and  thus  reasoning,  he  would 


CONCLUSION  117 

continue,  "  Who  henceforth  can  be  dear  to 
me,  for  it  is  vain  to  vesture  a  mortal  creature 
with  immortal  love  ?  The  most  noble  graces 
and  the  most  perfect  gifts  can  please  me  no 
more,  for  now  I  know  that  the  fairest  women 
and  the  most  honourable  men  must  also 
some  day  die."  Thus  might  one  in  old  times 
have  spoken  to  himself  in  the  haughtiness  of 
his  soul,  and  would  have  refused  to  offer 
another  triumph  to  the  triumphs  of  Death 
by  refusing  to  love.  But  after  all — in  the 
Philosophic  Absolute — who  can  climb  the 
heights  of  the  magnificent  Mountain  Truth 
which  lifts  its  glorious  head  beyond  the 
outmost  stars  and  pillars  God  Himself? 
No  man,  nor  any  tribe,  nor  even  the  human 
Race,  nor  yet  the  whole  Creation  of  In- 
telligences higher  than  Man.  Yet  if  we 
take  away  Love  from  Life  we  take  away  the 
Wings  that  would  lift  us  when  we  cannot 
climb. 

Viewing  the  fall  of  Apollonius's  life  we 
find  it  does  not  differ  from  its  height  in  re- 
spect of  spiritual  Love.     The  Peace  of  Vast 


ii8  APOLLONIUS   OF   TYANA 

Plains  and  the  Silence  of  Solitary  Mountains 
were  ever  in  his  heart,  but  he  never  heard 
the  singing  of  the  Seraphim — the  Seraphim 
who,  most  aflame  with  Love,  are  nearest 
God.  He  was  never  lifted  up,  during  all 
his  life,  into  the  burning  plane  of  Adoration 
and  Love  which  Christians  only  know.  And 
in  the  extreme  hour  he  turned  from  the 
affections  and  comfort  of  his  fellow-man.  He 
looked  for  Peace  and  not  for  Love.  Peace  is 
indeed  a  blessed  thing,  longed  for  and  prayed 
for  so  earnestly  and  so  ceaselessly  by  weary 
humanity  ;  and  it  has  been  so  much  prized, 
through  all  the  Christian  ages,  that  a  special 
significance  has  been  ascribed  to  it  in  the 
Eastern  Church,  and  a  special  Litany,  called 
the  Litany  of  Peace,  reserved  for  use  by 
Her  in  all  Her  sacred  Offices.  And  we 
may  say,  perhaps  not  unwisely,  that  Death 
came  to  Apollonius,  in  the  words  of  such 
another  of  Her  Litanies,  as  "an  Angel  of 
Peace,  a  faithful  Guide,  a  Guardian  of  his 
soul  and  body." 

And  yet  again  we  find  that  beyond  the 


CONCLUSION  119 

Grave  he  seeks  Peace.  He  leaves  none 
behind  him.  And  this  is  quite  sufficient 
in  our  opinion  to  justify,  if  on  no  other 
grounds,  the  entire  dismissal  of  the  foolish 
invention  of  controversialists  that  the  life 
and  death  of  Apollonius  was  drawn  up  by 
his  biographer  as  a  counterwork  to  the  life 
and  death  of  the  Son  of  God.  For  at  the 
supreme  epoch  of  "  inevitable  change "  his 
peace  of  mind  was  not  made  sorrowful  with 
the  sense  of  a  great  betrayal.  He  has  no 
fears  of  an  inevitable  passion.  He  arranges 
no  sad  Ccena^  utters  no  final  farewell,  pro- 
phetic with  the  anguish  of  his  death.  He 
bequeaths  no  cheering  promise  of  a  per- 
petual Presence,  no  gift  of  Peace,  to  his 
friends.  He  grants  no  succouring  or  up- 
lifting prerogatives.  He  gives  no  Donatio 
mortis  causa^  so  to  say,  to  his  disciples  ;  but 
to  the  dulcet  and  inviting  voices  of  virgins 
issuing,  as  his  followers  would  believe,  from 
the  Singing  Gates  of  Heaven,  he  departs 
triumphantly  and  as  one  called  to  the  throne 
of  the   Gods.     Thither   he   ascends,   as   a 


I20  APOLLONIUS   OF  TYANA 

God  to  the  Gods.  His  is  no  death,  for  he 
does  not  die.  It  is  a  sacred  transformation, 
an  assumption,  an  apotheosis.  To  the  mind 
of  the  ancient  it  is  magnificent,  but  to  us  it 
lacks  the  sweet,  sad  note  of  humanity  ;  for 
it  lacks  that  one  inevitable,  one  tremendous 
crisis  of  our  being,  that  one  awful  and  con- 
summate moment,  when  the  stricken  soul, 
so  long  pursued,  is  at  length  overtaken  by 
the  transcendent  Love  of  God. 


PRINTED   BV 

WILIIAM   BRENDON   AND   SON,    LTD. 

PLYMOUTH 


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